Being Forgotten

I was reading Matthew 10 this morning and I found myself feeling bad for Thaddaeus. Almost all of the other disciples have a parenthetical comment after their names. Simon (also called Peter), Andrew (Peter’s brother), Matthew (the tax collector), even Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him) got a line. But Thaddaeus is just Thaddaeus. I am sure that I have read his name before, but he is one of the forgettable apostles. Obviously, Thaddaeus didn’t know that he would get no additional commentary when the gospels were written years later. He didn’t know that Peter would be looked upon as the “rock” of apostolic succession in Rome. I am pretty sure that it wouldn’t even bother him if he did know. So, why does it bother me?

I think it bothers me because I don’t want to be a forgotten part of the story. I want notes next to my name. I want people to know that I existed and that I was important. I know that this is sick and wrong and the story is about Jesus not Thaddaeus or me. But there is something in me that desperately desires to be known. Maybe it is because of my love for history. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know that I desire to be a part of the history books when I am gone. I want books written about me. I don’t want to be unmentioned and forgotten. At least Goliath got billing, but what about all the others who died in battle without their names ever being known or mentioned. What about their stories?

Why is it when I read the scriptures I see myself as Peter, or David, or Paul, but not as one of the unnamed characters? What if God doesn’t want anyone to know my name? I can pray with John the Baptist that He may increase and that I may decrease, but I want to do this from a place of status. I just read a book that talked about “self-addiction” and I realize that this is how my addiction to my self plays out. I want glory, fame and renown, not just for now, but for all times. I want history to record my life and passing as something significant. I want to be a main part of the story; not to go unmentioned, or to be a footnote. I want a chapter written about me! Why is it then that God calls me to labor in obscurity; for all the things that I have done and been a part of doing to be chalked up to someone else’s column? I don’t think I would mind so much if all the glory went to God, but when the glory goes to someone else, it galls me. I want to shout, “Hey! I was there too!! It was actually my idea!! He didn’t do it by himself! Can I get an honorable mention, just a parenthetical statement would be fine!?”

The truth is that my sadness for Thaddaeus reveals my own mixed and twisted motives. It’s true that I am serving the Lord and (by and large) obeying Him and doing the things He has asked me to do, but in my heart I want people to notice and to be impressed. It is base and wicked, but it is true. I want people to see me and to be impressed with me. I tell myself that I will give all the glory to God when He elevates me, but I am pretty sure that I would want to steal just a bit for myself and surreptitiously hide it away. I would cut out the press clipping and pull it out from time to time to reassure myself that I am important “because it says so right here”. I once read in Christianity Today about the 100 up and coming Christian leaders of my generation. I was actually personally acquainted with a few of them, but I secretly wanted my name to make the list. A part of me couldn’t believe that they didn’t call me for a comment of a picture.

I am so grateful that God loves me. He knows my twisted heart and He loves me anyway. He still chooses to use me, and to use others with similarly twisted motives. I guess He doesn’t have a lot to choose from as we are a pretty messed up group. I pray that He will have mercy on me and that He will change my heart. Lord Jesus have mercy on me a sinner! I know that I have no hope for the salvation of my soul apart from you and that my heart is still desperately wicked and beyond knowing. By you know me and you love me. That gives me hope.

God Redeems

In Exodus 6:9-13 we find an interesting vignette that provides a window into the way that God works with man in the process of redemption. God used the burning bush to get Moses’ attention and chose Moses to do this incredibly intimidating and dangerous thing. He told Him to go back to Egypt to set His people free. Moses raised a number of objections, but God countered them all. God even warned Moses ahead of time that Pharaoh would refuse and that things would get worse before they got better, but that in the end the Israelites would “pillage the Egyptians” when they were finally released to leave. So, Moses obeyed and headed back to Egypt. Aaron met him along the way, and together they showed the Israelites the powerful signs that God had shown them. Everything seemed to be going well. Then Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh for the first time only to be rebuffed by him, resulting in more work for their Hebrew brothers and sisters. The leaders of the Israelites immediately turn on Moses and Aaron and Moses cries out to God. The Lord responded by reminding Moses about what and why He was moving things forward in this way and commands Moses to explain these things to the Israelites.

So Moses told the people what the LORD had said, but they wouldn’t listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the increasing burden of their slavery.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go back to Pharaoh, and tell him to let the people of Israel leave Egypt.”
“But Lord!” Moses objected. “My own people won’t listen to me anymore. How can I expect Pharaoh to listen? I am no orator!”
But the LORD ordered Moses and Aaron to return to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to demand that he let the people of Israel leave Egypt. (NLT)

God had a plan and Moses had a message! God told Moses to deliver His message of good news to those enslaved by an evil king. A king who neither knew nor feared the LORD God. The response of the king is not shocking, but the response of the people is disappointing. The people wouldn’t listen to the message or the messenger. From Moses’ perspective the response of the people was deeply discouraging and was apparently a major barrier to accomplishing the will of God; so much so that Moses returned to one of his original objections to being a messenger of God. But their failure to respond to opposition and oppression with faith did not derail God’s intent and plan to redeem them. God instructed Moses to push ahead. He would draw His people Israel out of Egypt and He would do it through the one who was drawn out of the river of Egypt. They would be saved not through their own agency any more than the baby Moses was in control of his salvation from the river.

God ordered Moses and Aaron to continue with the process of redemption even when those they were working to save wanted nothing to do with them. The work of redemption is not ultimately about the people. It is about the character and nature of God. God reminds Moses in the first part of chapter 6 that He is saving them because of the promise that He gave to their forefathers. God keeps His promises. That does not lessen His compassion for the people, but rather puts it in the proper context. He is moved to save them and He will save them even if they are unwilling or unable to cooperate in the process.

Notice that God does not do this work of redemption independent of man. He raised up men, Moses and Aaron, to be his messengers. He used them to take His message to both the ones being saved and the ones holding them captive. He gave them wonder working power to demonstrate His power to save. He has called us to be His servants, His messengers. He will accept no excuses from His servants, but will be with us and WILL REDEEM His children!

A Crazy Story and a Choice

The gospel is such a ludicrous story! How can it be that the Lord of the Universe would send His only begotten Son to die for sinful men who were still in rebellion against Him? How can it be true that God would love the world so much that He would send His Son to save us from slavery to sin and death? What kind of God kills Himself for people who do not love Him? But the story doesn’t end there. It’s crazier than that. He died so that the traitorous rebels would become His very own children. He didn’t die just to save us from something, but to save us TO something.

It was His pleasure to crush His Son to bring many sons to glory. By destroying one Son He has paid the price for the rebels and has gone even farther by welcoming them into His own family. What kind of King welcomes those who have rebelled against Him, and violently so, into His own family and then invites them to share His glory, to reign with Him. For that is what He does! He invites us to reign with Him. The only thing that He requires is that we believe. Even the faith that we lack He will provide if we but ask Him. We must believe that He exists and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. We must cry out, “I believe. Help me with my unbelief.”

Why is it so easy to believe that I am a miserable sinner in need of grace and so hard to remember that I am royalty? I have been grafted into the tree of life, adopted into the household of God. I have been anointed as a royal priest. I have been invested with authority to reign with Him. He reigns over all the earth, and we are called to be a part of His divine administration of the Kingdom. He has given us everything that we need for life and godliness, but I rarely lay claim to the wisdom, power and authority that are mine for the asking. Instead I lay claim to my sinful identity and my inadequacy and live disempowered and discouraged.

What a paradox am I!? I am both sinful and holy, both traitorous and royal, both powerless and powerful. I must choose to believe God and to reckon on His faithfulness to finish the work that He has begun in me. He has exchanged my life, my works for His. Old things have passed away. Behold! New things have come. My believing the lie that I am incapable does not change the fact that I really can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. My continuing to believe the lie that keeps me down in the mud is so tragic when compared with the glorious truth of my redemption and my identity in Christ.

I have spent so much time and energy lamenting my sinful past and the ever present fleshly tendencies of my own heart. Today, I choose to believe the unbelievable truth that I am a prince in the household of God! I have been chosen to suffer with Him and to reign with Him. While no good thing dwells in my flesh, I have been chosen and exalted. I will reign forever with Him and am even now seated in heaven and kept by His power and promise.

I choose not to live with my head down on my chest. I choose to no longer regard myself, or anyone else, from a worldly perspective. I am a new man in Christ and a chosen ambassador to carry this message to others. He is making His appeal to the nations, to my neighbors, to my family through me. Nothing is impossible with Christ. I choose to reign with Him today, to listen for and obey His commands, to tune my heart to His voice. I pledge my allegiance to Heaven. My Father, the King, has purchased me back from my slavery to sin and to death with the blood of His first born Son. He who did not spare His own Son will give me all that I need today. I choose to believe Him and to live in this reality today.

The Paradox of Community

The life of a Christian is full of paradox. Life through death. Joy through suffering. Solitude in community. The call to follow God is a call to join the community of God, the people of God, the household of God; and yet, it is also a call to an individual and personal relationship to Him. There is no solidity to the community. The local manifestations of the Body of Christ are constantly in flux. Christ alone is the unchanging Rock of our salvation. It is to Him that each of us must cling.

Those of us who grew up in the church have spent most of our years surrounded by the community of faith. I cannot remember a time when I was not a member of the faith community. Well before I embraced Christ with a mature understanding of the implications for such a decision I was immersed in a culture of belief. The community nurtured me, trained me, was patient with me, and when God and the community agreed that I was ready, they sent me out into the world to help to create new communities of faith, to be the midwife for the birth of the Body of Christ in new locations and in new cultural manifestations. I love the Church. I have been cherished in its bosom and have seen it grow and mature in areas where it had never been known.

But along this road I have been many times separated from the community; either by geography or by vocation. The Lord has seen fit to call me out from, or away from the Church several times. Because I love the Church and value the role of community in life and ministry this has always been hard for me. But as I look at the pages of scripture I see that there were times in the life of many of the great saints of old that they had to stand alone with God. Abraham was called to leave his family and head out for parts unknown; later he would alone prepare to slaughter the son of the promise on the mountain. Moses spent years alone in the desert after spending years in semi-isolation as a Hebrew in the palace of the Pharaoh. Ezekiel kept his bizarre vigil for 390 days alone. Isaiah walked about naked and alone for 3 years because of the command of God. While these things are not normative, neither are they completely isolated.

There is a profound loneliness on the journey with and towards God. We are ultimately responsible to the One who is our Master. Our obedience to His call may lead us out into the desert alone as it lead our Lord Jesus. There in the desert He met the enemy and was sorely tempted but emerged victorious. God’s concern and plan for the Church and for the nations is individually expressed through the lives of His servants and this often has meant periods of solitude or isolation for them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” I am a man who has known and loves community. In the last few years the Lord seems to be calling me to more solitude. Sometimes that call has taken the form of gentle urgings to retreat to spend time with Him alone. Because my obedience to these urgings is somewhat voluntary, they are not so scary. In a sense, I define the length and type of my isolation. But there are times when God has isolated me from the community. He has forced me to rely on Him alone, to seek Him in solitude. During those times I find myself anxious and clamoring for community. I find fear in my heart. What if God really isn’t enough? What if I make the wrong move out here in the desert and there is no one to help me get up when I fall? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I haven’t heard God’s voice at all?

God comes to me and assures me that He loves me. His Word confirms that He uses experience as the best teacher. I cannot learn what He wants to teach me in community. He has isolated me to force me to face my fears and to learn that He is trustworthy. Like Elijah who obeyed and went into the desert of the drought and famine stricken land only to be fed by ravens, I find that God supplies exactly what I need, just when I need it. I will bank everything on His faithfulness.