“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that’s what He’s getting.”-Jack Handy

We Christians believe in spiritual things. At least we are forced to since God is Spirit. We even claim to be both body and spirit. But how much do we really accept the spiritual world? Do we even consider the spiritual world as we go about our daily existence? We accept the Bible’s teaching on the spiritual world, but in daily life we exist almost entirely as if the spiritual world doesn’t exist. This is to our peril.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12). Name your struggle. Now do you believe in the spiritual source of that evil? Perhaps the reason you haven’t overcome that struggle is because you are using non-spiritual weapons to fight it. After this statement by Paul, he talks about spiritual armor (truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation) and weapons (the Word of God and Prayer).

Every time we enter into prayer, we engage in spiritual warfare. Satan knows this and will do everything in his power to distract, discourage, and frustrate our time with God. It is on our knees where we most engage in this battle of Good and Evil. We don’t fight it to gain the victory, but we fight because we already have the victory. Our desire now is to see the Kingdom come; God’s reign extended to every soul on the planet.

Where should we start in warfare prayer? No matter how ignorant of the spiritual world we are there are a few things that everyone can do to drive back the work of the Devil on our world.

The first type of prayer is worship. Worship is our primary activity as God’s creation. It is for worship that we were created and it is in worship that we find our meaning of existence. Satan’s pride wanted this worship for himself. His hatred of God wants to steal the rightful praise of God from our hearts. To do that he tempts our fallen nature which is in rebellion against God. The sinful pride we so naturally carry with us is put aside when we worship. In worship we declare the greatness and glory of God. We declare him as holy and nothing compares to him. The Lord’s Prayer begins with worship and flows into God’s will being done on earth. It is the proper progression once we first recognize God in absolute wonder.

The second type of prayer that has powerful consequences in the spiritual realm is repentance. We rarely feel comfortable in this kind of prayer because it means confronting our sin. Guided by the Holy Spirit and God’s Word the depths of our unrighteousness is brought to the surface. It is here where it can be dealt with. Confession is an appropriate step at this point. Repentance affects the spiritual realm because it removes the strongholds of Satan in our lives. Every sin that we hide and hold on to is a place where Satan can attack. It is through these broken walls where he gains access and plunders

our faith, hope, and love. If you consider the Armor of God, the most essential is the Helmet of Salvation. Second in importance is the Breastplate of Righteousness. These guard the vitals on a soldier and are vital to our spiritual life. Proverbs 15:29 says, “The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” If any of our other prayers are to have an effect in the spiritual realm we must go through the process of repentance. Only when wickedness has been rooted out of the heart are we in a position to pray with power.

It is hard to remove selfishness from our prayers. However, when we pray for others those prayers are much less likely to have a selfish motive. It is this third type of prayer that has great affect in the spiritual realm. It is right after Jesus presentation of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11 where he teaches on intercessory prayer. It is the persistence of a friend that gets the need met for another. God longs for these kinds of prayers because they are motivated by love. It was love that motivated Jesus to die on our behalf. Love is the persuasive power that gets intercessory prayer answered.

Enter into the battle that rages invisible around us. Shake the foundations that Satan has established in our world. We know that it stands on nothing but sand. Praise the name of the Lord who is our strong tower. Rebuild the walls that have crumbled down from sin. Stand firm and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” (Matthew 11:12). We are more than conquerors…we are liberators.

Interestingly enough, I think I was spiritually thirsty the year I was in seminary. This might be shocking, but you can spend a lot of time in the Word, studying it in depth and not connect to God. I think what also made this a spiritually dry time was that I wasn’t connected to close friends and particularly Samantha. We were engaged, and distance doesn’t promote intimacy. I attended classes with many great Christians, but they lived an hour away, so spending time with them wasn’t feasible. And although I took advantages of opportunities with the Young Adults Group I didn’t make any great connections. It wasn’t a desert the whole time, there were oases God provided–all-seminary spiritual retreats and God speaking occasionally to me in my studies–but overall it wasn’t an easy time.

Right now I am coming to the realization that God is in every place at all times. Yes, that is his omnipresence. But all too often we don’t really believe it. How could we boldly sin if we believed he was right there with us at the time? It’d be like cheating on your wife in her presence. Beyond sins, I feel that most of the time I don’t believe he’s right here. Certainly much of my past was the same way. I do know that in the times I really needed him to be there–when I felt the most alone and hurt–I was aware of his presence. For that I give thanks. My prayer is that I would come to the everlasting awareness that God is with me at all times and that I would live my life accordingly.

What marked the beginning(s) of your faith journey?

I would have to say that my faith journey is closely tied to my heritage and godly family. Yes, God calls individuals, but often we find him doing so to establish a people who are faithful to him. Certainly I have seen this in my family. So many of my relatives and ancestors walked closely with God. My own journey has benefited from the knowledge of God passed on to me. I consider this a blessing and as I now have children, seek to continue the legacy. 

The milestones of my personal journey:

• January 1984 – Accepted Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of my sins
• September 1989 – Baptized
• June 1995 – Made a commitment to go into full-time ministry
• February 1997 – Mission trip to Honduras
• 1997-2001 – At Crown College
• 1999 & 2000 – Camp counselor at Big Sandy Camp
• 2001-2002 – At Canadian Theological Seminary
• 2002-2003 – First ministry position at Hope Church in Apple Valley, MN
• 2006-present – Current ministry position at Faith Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, MN

    If Jesus were walking our streets [post]. . .

• He would be more critical of those who are theologically on target than those who are not.
• He would attend celebrations and drinking parties.
• He would possibly provide the beer.
• He would drink with the rest of us.
• He would spent a good chunk of time with those whom the religiously “pure” had no time for.
• He would interrupt some of our religious services by making unplanned announcements and controversial statements.
• He would tell stories that were relevant and attractive but not always immediately clear.
• He would spend a lot more time encouraging others to follow him than he would simply providing religious facts about himself.
• He would live courageously yet humbling.
• He would serve those who crossed his path.
• He would rub shoulders with the outcasts of society.
• He would demonstrate that theology is intended to be done in public and on the streets.
• He would go places deemed objectionable by the moral standard-bearers of society.
• He would make people feel both comfortable and uneasy.
• He would violate some of the rules of the religious establishment.
• He would desire to heal and not to hurt.
• He would be compassionate every day.
• He would be challenged (and in some cases hated) by the experts of our day.
• He would probably cause a lot of us to wonder if he is truly the one he claimed to be.
• He would keep his promises.
• He would most likely be criticized by a good percentage of the media.
• He would . . .

Also, peek around on the sight I found this on: The Porpoise Diving Life–Reality For the Rest of Us or Picking Up Where Purpose-Driven Peters Out by Bill Dahl.

I went to the theatre
With the author of a successful play.
He insisted on explaining everything.
Told me what to watch,
The details of direction,
The errors of the property man,
The foibles of the star.
He anticipated all my surprises
And ruined the evening.
Never again!–And mark you,
The greatest Author of all
Made no such mistake.

So, maybe it is a good thing God doesn’t tell us everything. As much as we want to ask why he gives certain commands or allows different tragedies to befall us, he does have a reason for it. For us to know, would remove the wonder. It would diminish our faith, not increase it. It makes living this spiritual journey exciting and scary, but it will be worth it to see how it all ends.

INTRODUCTION:
One of the hardest things about our small group study on Justice is that we have to also look at Injustice. We have to face things like poverty, slavery, forced prostitution, and ethnic cleansing. When we hear personal stories and not just statistics, these oppressive tragedies are unbearable. The difficulty is that the more you look at evil, the harder it is to see God.

Our study of Justice has revealed that we as Christians are commanded to seek justice, encourage the oppressed, and defend the helpless. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember…those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” However, as we love our hurting neighbor by identifying with their pain, we can be overwhelmed by feelings that God is distant and uncaring.

This may be why we turn away from images and stories that reveal the suffering in the world. One person who refused to look away from the suffering of the world is Mother Teresa. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for, in her own words, “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.” Her first Home for the Dying was to give a beautiful death to people who lived like animals so that they might die like angels—loved and wanted. Instead of isolating herself from the pain of others she embraced it.

In her private writings published in “Come Be My Light” she writes of a vision she had where Jesus calls her to the poorest of the poor. Here is what she says God said to her:

“My little one–come–come–carry Me into the holes of the poor.–Come be My light.–I cannot go alone–they don’t know Me–so they don’t want Me. You come–go amongst them, carry Me with you into them.–How I long to enter their holes–their dark unhappy homes. Come be their victim.–In your immolation–in your love for Me–they will see Me, know Me, want Me….
You will suffer–suffer very much–but remember I am with you.–Even if the whole world rejects you–remember you are My own–and I am yours only. Fear not. It is I.–Only obey–obey very cheerfully and promptly and without any questions–just only obey. I shall never leave you–if you obey.”

Her response was one of simple obedience and humility that reveals a deep intimate relationship with God. However, almost precisely the time she started her mission to care for the poor and dying in Calcutta, she began to feel abandoned by God. His presence which she had known so powerfully disappeared. This is not something you would expect from someone who was so obviously following the will of God. For almost 50 years until her death she lived with a feeling that God had left her. Only for a five week period in all that time did she experience the intimate presence of Christ she used to have.

Why is this? Why do we also go through times where God seems distant? Honestly, I don’t know. But if someone like Mother Teresa lived through it as well as King David, then it must play some role in our spiritual journey.

Now, to our text today. We often turn to the Psalms to hear some of the most honest prayers ever recorded, because we can relate to the raw emotion in them. For whatever emotion you feel, there is probably a psalm expressing it. It is also interesting that the same person who wrote Psalm 23 about the closeness of God as his Shepherd is the same person who wrote Psalm 13 about how distant God is.

DAVID’S QUESTIONS:
David starts out Psalm 13 with four questions:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
David feels utterly, completely abandoned by God. The feeling of loss and abandonment is so great that he feels it may last forever. In the midst of suffering and trials it always feels like it will last forever. Rarely do we see when they will end our what the outcome will be. For David, the feeling is even more severe because he can still remember a time when God was close. The closer we walk with God, the louder the silence is in his absence.

How long will you hide your face from me?
In the Bible, turning your face to someone is a way to show love and favor. It basically means “blessing”. Conversely hiding your face means “rejection”. David feels that God has rejected him and removed his blessing from him. It is common in times of suffering to feel that God has rejected you. It is the difficulty we face when we can only see God’s gifts not him himself.

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
In the depths of despair, David’s thoughts eat away at him. His emotions overwhelm him. He may have wondered if he has sinned or offended God in some way. Or perhaps they have progressed to the point of telling him to give up. David knows God’s promise that he will never leave him or forsake him, but his thoughts and emotions are challenging that promise. It has become a daily fight to trust in God’s promises over what he thinks and feels.

How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Who knows whether David’s enemy is the cause of the suffering or merely taking advantage of it, but either way when he sees the injustice of evil man prospering while he suffers; it is too much to bear.

DAVID’S PRAYER:
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

The first thing David does during this time of feeling abandoned by God is to pray. G.K. Chesterton said, “When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven’s name to what?” Isn’t that true? When we feel abandoned by God, we tend to turn away from him, but there is no where else to go, no one else better to turn to. The best thing to do is pray an honest gut wrenching prayer.

Obviously, David’s prayer is that God would once again turn his face to him, that he would bless him. He longs for God’s felt presence. However, if he can’t receive that, his second request is that he would have light for his eyes. This phrase refers to spiritual knowledge or enlightenment. But even if God stays silent, he trusts God enough to believe that there is a reason for it. Yet, he still wants to know that reason.

To know why there is suffering is a question theologians and philosophers have asked forever. If we only knew why we suffer, we think that it would make it easier to bear. In the book of Job, his friends offered a bunch of reasons, all of which were considered and fell short. Even Job’s explanation wasn’t sufficient. His encounter when God answered the question revealed there was much more going on then he could possibly imagine.

DAVID’S DECLARATION:
Here is where we must have faith. David concludes the Psalm by saying:

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord
for he has been good to me.

Whether he feels it or not, he believes that God does in fact love him. Even if his suffering and abandonment leads to death, it will eventually lead to salvation which is only found in the Lord.

And that is the triumph of this Psalm. Whether we ever feel the presence of God again, we can still declare his unfailing love and his salvation. It takes immense faith to trust that in the midst of suffering that God is still being good to us. David could claim it and declare it. Mother Teresa never stopped believing nor abandoned her work. She simply said, “If this brings You glory–if souls are brought to you–with joy I accept all to the end of my life.” She accepted the darkness as the privilege of sharing in the Christ’s suffering on the cross.

Can you believe that God is being good to you even when you don’t feel his nearness? It may be the hardest steps of faith you take as you seem to walk all alone through the valley of death that keeps stretching on and on. But if you trust that God loves you and that he never leaves you, salvation is yours.

CONCLUSION:
On of the darkest times in modern history is Nazi Germany. Evil was out in the open and spreading through Europe like a cancer. God’s people suffered severely. It is amazing though how many still trusted God. On a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany where Jews had hidden are ascribed these words. Words of faith, hope, and love.

I believe in the sun
even when it isn’t shining.
I believe in love
even when I am alone.
I believe in God
even when he is silent.

Elisha died and was buried. Moabite raiding parties invaded the land at the beginning of the year. One day some men were burying a man when they spotted a raiding party. So they threw the dead man into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the dead man came to life and stood on his feet.

What?! So a dead guy touches Elisha’s bones and he comes back to life. No prayer. No special reason. Seems to me to give some credit to the Catholic idea of relics. We see a few examples in the Bible where one of God’s men brings someone back to life, but that person was alive. Here Elisha was dead. Come on! What was God’s plan there? Seriously, I have no idea. Maybe God just didn’t want any other dead guys to share the tomb with Elisha, so if you toss one in, he’s just going to walk out.

Anyway, I’m trying to stretch my paradigm a bit. So far I’ve concluded that basically God does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Good theology I think, but kinda scary. You gotta expect things to happen in unexpected ways with God. You never know when a dead guy is going to come back to life. My other thought is that I know nothing about the spiritual world. Though it seems to me that the spiritual world is intricately linked to the physical world. That means there really must be holy places and holy things. Sure God is everywhere and everything is His, but in some places and some things he may choose to put some of his power.

On the one hand, it feels like superstition to me. And I am cautious. We are so drawn to the supernatural, the miraculous, the spectacular that acknowledging it might lead people astray. On the other hand, to suppress it seems that we deny God to work in ways that he might choose. Hey, God knows best. If we can’t admit that, we have a long way to go.  I don’t know what to expect now, but my eyes will definitely be open at the next funeral I attend.

That is really the question of Easter isn’t it. Anyone here personally know anyone who has come back to life after being dead?

In this modern age of science we have learned a lot about death.

In fact, science has identified many kinds of death that can affect a person.

There is:

Necrobiosis which is the death of cells over the lifespan of an
organism. After necrobiosis, a cell is replaced with a new one in a
continual process throughout a human’s life. In fact, every cell in
your body completely replaces itself every 2 years. 98% in less than 1
year. So every cell in your body that you called your “self” two years
ago is dead. You physically are a completely different person.

Necrosis which is when many cells die at once. Necrosis is the
death of an organ or part of an organ. In medicine this is called
infarction. Necrosis is caused by infections, cancer, serious injury,
the presence of venom, severe inflammation, and a variety of diseases.

Clinical Death. No breathing, no circulation, and no brain
activity characterize clinical death. It begins at the very onset of
the symptoms of death, say right after cardiac arrest has cause the
heart to stop. It lasts for about four minutes, and it is the interval
in which life can be brought back through CPR. After a short few
minutes, death is permanent, because the state of the body has gone
from clinical death to…

Brain Death. A brain deprived of oxygen survives for 3 to 7
minutes, making it the first organ to die when circulation or
respiration ceases or is impeded, whatever the cause of trouble may be.
After a few minutes, the brain can’t be brought back to life by any
means available today. This is brain death, and it’s the reason why
clinical death, the period in which a person can be resuscitated, is so
short. Once the brain goes, the heart doesn’t know how to pump and the
lungs don’t know how to breath.

Somatic death. Eventually an organism ceases to be in the
process of dying and proceeds to be dead. Somatic death is the death–
the permanent, irreversible death– of an organism as a whole. In
humans it is usually after brain death, as the other vital organs are
unable to function without the brain. With modern technology, though,
one can be brain dead but still have circulation and respiration
artificially. In such a case one isn’t somatically dead because other
organs are still alive. Once artificial support is removed somatic
death occurs, because the person is then entirely and completely
inactive with regard to brain, circulation, and respiration.

I could go on from there to what happens to the body after that, but
it’s kinda gross, tho’ you may have picked up some facts from watching
CSI. But we don’t have to live in the scientific age or be all that
smart to realize that death is permanent and irreversible. So why would
anyone make the claim that Jesus rose from the dead?

Well, it’s not just one person that made that claim. The Bible records Jesus appearing to many different people:

• To Mary Magdalene and other women returning from the tomb
• To two disciples on the Road to Emmaus
• To all Eleven apostles
• To James, Jesus’ half-brother
• To 500 other believers disciples

The claims are so many and involve so many people it is either a massive
delusion repeated many times over the period of 40 days or a huge
conspiracy. The delusion is too complex, too detailed, and involves too
many people for it to be true. The conspiracy could have easily been
revealed by the Romans if they would’ve just produced the body. The
only other possibility is the impossible truth that he really did come
back to life, and seeing how fervently the disciples believed it, most
of whom were killed for claiming it, it seems that this is the likely
answer.

Yet we still struggle with the fact that when people
die, they stay dead. This universal truth is something that is very
hard to get over, unless there is a truth that is even more universal.
There is and it is right before our eyes. That truth is that when sinful
people die, they stay dead. Aha! We’re onto something here. In the
Bible, death is inseparably tied to sin. Sinners die. So what happens
when a person dies who is not sinful? If we accept that Jesus is
sinless, it would become hard for us to explain why he should die at
all. It is only that he took upon himself the sins of humanity. Your
sins and mine. Apart from this he would never have died. And so, after
that sacrifice on our behalf was finished and accepted by the Father it
is only natural that he would come back to life.

So where does that leaves us with sinners. Well, we already know the answer…we’re
going to die. But Jesus changed all that and provided us a way to live
again. Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” a lot in his epistles and it is
in that simple phrase where we can find the answer.

Ephesians 1:13-14 says:

“And you also were included in Christ
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having
believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of
those who are God’s possession–to the praise of his glory.”

Which basically means that when you heard the good news that Jesus paid the
penalty for your sins, the Holy Spirit lives in you and gives you all
the privileges of son-ship that Jesus has, including his sinless life
which we now know includes victory over death.

Paul repeats the idea a little later in Ephesians in 2:4-10:

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by
grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in
the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you
have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.”

So, if a man dies, will he live again? Only if he lives a perfect, sinless life, OR trusts in the only one who has.

Powered by ScribeFire.