Concerning Life as It Is Supposed to Be

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Reaching Fifty

The questions we ask at various stages in life are not bound to the age we actually inhabit, but more to the life situations those ages thrust upon us. So, some may ask questions at 45 that others are not asking until 65, and vise versa. But these generalizations do help us who teach and preach to consider how we might better connect with the real concerns of our audience.

As we ‘reach’ the fifties, Gordon MacDonald, from whose book A Resilient Life these observations come, says that having moved past life’s middle, we have reached a point for sober thinking. The questions that arise include:

Why is time moving so fast?
Why is my body becoming unreliable?
How do I deal with my failures and successes?
How can my spouse and I reinvigorate our relationship now that the children are gone?
Who are these young people who want to replace me?
Will we have enough money for our retirement years?

And, perhaps more than before, this one:

What do I do with my doubts and fears?

In the Forties

We are pondering the questions that people in various stages of life might be asking so that we might better communicate with them. Perhaps these suggestions from Gordon MacDonald are accurate, perhaps not, but they seem to me to be a good place to begin the conversation.

Those in their forties realize that they are beyond the place where they can protest that their mistakes are the product of youthful ignorance. They are mature, and are beginning to realize that they will not live forever. We wonder what has made us what we are and we wonder what we have yet to become. Some questions:

Who was I as a child, and what powers back then influence the kind of person I am today?
Why do some people seem to be doing better than I?
Why am I often disappointed in myself and others?
Why are limitations beginning to outnumber options?

The forties are times of great change. Bodies, children, marriage, financial standing, all change and create uncertainty. Questions can hinge toward hope or despair:

Why do I seem to face so many uncertainties?
What can I do to make a greater contribution to my generation?
What would it take to pick up a whole new calling in life and do the thing I’ve always wanted to do?

Though the word ‘trapped’ does come up more often than we wish it would, the forties can be a time when people are encouraged to focus their energies in a whole new way for good.

Questions of a ‘ThirtySomething’

Continuing to consider the questions that people in various stages of life are asking, Gordon MacDonald considers those in their thirties.

How do I prioritize the demands being made on my life?
How far can I go in fulfilling my sense of purpose?
Who are the people with whom I know I walk through life?

This last question is one of loneliness. With increased demands on time and responsibilities, old friendships drift into the distance, and there often is not the time to build and deepen new friendships.

This increased time demand raises a spiritual component. There is no longer much time for retreats and conferences and times of hanging out. Words like ’empty’, ‘tired’, ‘confused’, and ‘drifting’ come up frequently. And so does the question

What does my spiritual life look like? Do I even have time for one?

And this is complicated by the sense of failure that may begin to peek over the horizon, leading to the question:

Why am I not a better person?

If these thoughts are anywhere near the mark, it speaks of fertile ground for the Gospel.

“20-ish” Questions

In reference to this goal, then, what are the questions that those in their twenties are asking? I summarize MacDonald here:

What kind of a man or woman am I becoming?
How am I different from my mother or father?
Where can I find a few friends who will welcome me as I am and who will offer the familylike connections that I need [or never had]?
Can I love, and am I lovable?

MacDonald finds fear of rejection, loneliness, and the feeling that one might not fit.

Other questions include

What will I do with my life?
What is it that I really want in exchange for my life’s labors?
What parts of me and my life need correction?
and
Around what person or conviction will I organize my life?

Do you agree with these? What would you add or take away?

The Questions of Life

I’ve read about 40% of Gordon MacDonald’s book A Resilient Life and can only commend it with one SERIOUS reservation which, while not stripping the book of all value, places it in a category in which I could not give it to anyone without some explanation. I’ll comment on that when I have the opportunity to finish it.

I draw attention to the book at this point in order to extract from it something that MacDonald very well and which many should find useful. I refer to a portion of the book in which MacDonald helps us understand the questions that people are asking at various stages of their lives. This has value to me as a preacher but can be useful as well to any who are involved in teaching or leading adults.

Preachers, for example, have a message that they want to be heard. It is not merely an intellectual message appealing to intellectuals interested in discussing all the latest ideas. It is a practical message regarding a person’s place in this world and the purpose of his life. If I can preach Jesus in such a way that intersects the questions a listener is already asking, he is far more likely to give the message attention than if what I am saying appears to be ethereal and unrelated to the life he, or she, is living. In preparing a sermon or a lesson, it is good to ponder the questions the listener brings to the table so that one might address the content in such a way that it answers those questions. Do that, and we will be heard.

But getting a handle on what those questions are can be the tricky part. MacDonald has asked representative people from each decade of life to share with him the questions which most concern their peers. He asked this of twenty-somethings, those in their thirties, and each decade thereafter. His read on these questions seems to me to be highly accurate. I would like to share those with the readers of this blog.

But before I do that, I encourage those of you who are reading this and are interested to ponder what you think those questions might be. What questions are those in YOUR decade asking? What troubles them? What do they worry about? What occupies their innermost thoughts? What matters most to them?

The Gospel, II

Darrin Patrick, Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission summarizes the message of the gospel in this way:

The Facts
– Incarnation
– Sinlessness
– Crucifixion
– Resurrection

The Announcement
– Heralded declaration
* Jesus died for God
* Jesus died for sinners
* Jesus rose again
– Faith response
* Jesus is savior
* Jesus is lord
* Obedience is Christ motivated and empowered
* Identify idols
* Repent and believe the gospel

Best reminder from Patrick’s summary is this, referring to the revelation of Jesus in the Bible:

“Jesus isn’t saying, “Let me show you how to live,” so much as he is saying, “Let me show you why I died.”

Having Preacher for Lunch

My best sermon illustrations come to me on the Sunday afternoon or Monday morning AFTER I’ve preached the sermon to which they would have been wonderfully attached. Last Monday morning, after preaching on heaven from John 14:1-7, I was reading Tim Keller’s King’s Cross. One of the points in my sermon was that it is not seeing old friends or loved ones which will give heaven its greatest joy, though I cannot deny that hope. That which will give heaven it’s greatest joy is that we will see Jesus.

Keller makes a similar point and draws our attention to Joni Erickson, a quadriplegic. Joni as we would imagine does anticipate the freedom to run and jump which will be for her one of the joys of heaven. What we do NOT think about is that as a quadriplegic one of her desires, denied in this life, is to kneel. She is unable to join others in that posture of submission in worship. And so she says, quoted here by Keller,

Sitting there, I was reminded that in heaven I will be free to jump up, dance, kick, and do aerobics. And….sometime before the guests are called to the banquet table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus. (page 223)

I would have used that in a heartbeat! But I came upon it too late. So it goes.

On other occasions, I have material that I just cannot fit into a message. John 14:8-14, which I preached on this past Sunday, raises the subject of prayer. Jesus tells his disciples that he will do whatever they ask him to do in his name. Normally, we intellectual Presbyterian types want to make sure we adequately qualify Jesus’ statement here. To others, qualifications be damned, this gives license to name and claim one’s blessing.

My point was that Jesus’ intent is not captured by either camp, but rather by the one who sees God as a heavenly father whom we approach as children. And children never hesitate to ask their father for anything and everything.

The message was an encouragement then to pray, which as well is this book, Prayer by George A. Buttrick. (A book which is the only useable one from my grandfather’s library to have filtered its way down to me. The Reverend Rudolph Leslie Budd was a Methodist Minister who died when I was four, a few years before I determined to become a minister myself.) Buttrick is very quotable. In his introduction, he says this:

“Our world, as I write, is under grievous threats which are symptoms of worse threats. There is the threat of armed aggression. But that itself is a sign of disease—the multitudinous unrest of poverty-stricken masses….

“Even that unrest is symptomatic: the sign of spiritual debility. Our obsessed exploitation of the planet’s resources, our scramble for gain, and latterly our scientific skepticism have left us blind toward God.”

We should find those comments very contemporary. Curiously, they were penned on August 25, 1941, three months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

He goes on to say that we may address certain of these problems, but all such efforts would be in vain without a ‘revival of faith’.

“That revival is the deepest need. It will not come by tongue-lashings from politicians or preachers, nor by organizations, nor by new additions to our embarrassing store of facts. All of these are little pipings in the dark.

“Revival of faith can never come from us. It must come from God, in and through us. It must come by prayer….

“Those who pray are the real light-bearers in any age. Perhaps by these pages some may be added to their bright company.”

(pages 9, 10)

Apparently there were tongue lashing politicians and preachers then, too.

Lost illustrations and edited material are not my greatest regrets. Of far greater concern are the times on a Monday in replaying a sermon in my mind I realize ways in which I might have miscommunicated.

The application of the message Sunday was to pray – to just pray and ask God for stuff. God will change our desires over time, for sure, but we should just be those who love to ask and ask and ask, knowing that even in our asking, in our dependence, he is glorified.

As appropriate as that was, and as much as I needed to hear that, my fear is that people who already feel their inadequacy in prayer would have walked away feeling no comfort or encouragement but only guilt. I fear that I might not have adequately spoken comfort to them. But it is too late now. One can’t go back. (Unless he has a blog…)

Some people joke about having preacher for Sunday lunch. I understand. I have preacher for lunch and supper on Sunday and every meal thereafter well into the following week.

Mainly Maintaining a Main Message

I heard this morning on ‘Christian’ radio a couple of all too common assertions. One placed Barak Obama in a category with Nebuchdnezer, Nero, and Hitler. I did not like this when George Bush’s opponents did the same thing, but at least they did not try to claim Biblical support for such stupidity. The other, less obvious but quite common, was a preacher telling his people that the job of his congregation was to discover God’s plan for their lives and to do it. Well, whatever the plan is, the doing is no doubt hard enough without God having to go and hide it on us.

These I toss into the pile of the dozens and dozens of false inferences from the Bible that I can never directly address. It may be a mistake, but I decided some time ago that I cannot answer every false Christian claim in my preaching, so I won’t try. I will write and speak and preach the truth as I understand it, arising form the best practices of interpretation, and let it stand.

This may be a mistake. I am making the assumption that the truth expressed through a demonstrated proper method of handling the Scriptures will strengthen people against falsehood. I am also assuming that a ministry of positive affirmation is a healthier diet for God’s people than a ministry of negative confrontation.

The hard thing is, of course, that should I change my methodology, there are just too many targets out there to chase. I think I’ll stay my course.

Quick Note Regarding Scrivener

Earlier today I made a comment at Justin Taylor’s site praising Scrivener as a tool for sermon preparation and directed people here to find a way to contact me. I was rushed, and so people were left with the impression that I was saying that there was something on the blog here that would answer their questions regarding how I USE Scrivener. Sorry for that!

As much as I’d like to write such a post, I can’t take the time right now. So, I posted a follow-up comment which answered most questions in succinct fashion. But I just noticed that that comment is ‘awaiting moderation’. (Gee – I thought it was pretty moderate to begin with… )

So, while we wait Mr. Taylor’s moderation, I will re-post my comments here. I don’t know why I did not think of that sooner. And some day I want to expand this.

The context involves using Scrivener for sermon preparation. To that end I offered my sermon prep templates to all who wanted them. So, here they are.

If I had time, I’d tell you how I use these – perhaps on my blog at some point. But for now, here are the templates, one for s sermon series (I currently have close to 60 sermons all stored in a single project for my series through John) and the other for a single series. It is great for keeping the sermon research all orderly. And with the clippings feature, when I see something online that will fit a current or upcoming sermon, I clip it and keep it until I need it. I could gush without end. In any event, hope these are helpful. And, for newbies, the Scrivener tutorials are extremely well done and give enough to get one well started.

[[LINKS DELETED!! SEE BELOW…]]

There you go. Wish it could be prettier! Hope it is helpful to many. Happy to answer questions. Let me know if you are still having trouble.

UPDATE: Okay, those did not work. Instead, download the following, unzip it, and open it in Scrivener. Then if you want to make use of it, chose ‘save as template’. It includes only the sermon series template, but that is what I use most often.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1943180/Sermon_Series.zip

Preaching Hell

Written well before any modern controversy, British commentator Bruce Milnepenned some wise words on the place of hell in Christian preaching. Worthy of reflection here are his comments on John 12:35, 36, a passage following a very rich presentation on the meaning of the cross.

So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. (John 12:35, 36)

To this Milne says:

There is an urgency in this last appeal of Jesus from which the modern church does well to learn. The days when sermons on hell and its conditions were the staple diet of the evangelical pulpit have long since departed. Their going is not wholly to be regretted. Fear of hell-fire is certainly not the primary motive for seeking Christ’s salvation. Besides, such preaching often concentrated on the damnation of the lost in a manner that left the saved smugly secure and unchallenged concerning the profound moral and ethical implications of living a ‘saved’ life. We would not turn back the clock in this respect even if we could.

Yet the warning note which Jesus strikes here is always relevant. The implications of turning away from the light of God are terrible in the extreme, and Jesus is concerned that people be clearly aware of them. We are certainly to draw men and women towards God’s salvation by all God-honouring inducements. We are certainly authorized to bear witness with full hearts to the completeness of the salvation which Christ has won for sinners, and the joys beyond compare which await those who cast themselves upon his mercy.

In addition, however, we dare not fail to warn them that the Redeemer is also a judge, that sin unrepented is sin condemned, and that it is, and will be, when the king returns, ‘a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ‘ (Hebrews 10:31). While people have opportunity, we are to speak, and plead, as did our Saviour….

from Bruce Milne, The Message of John (Bible Speaks Today)

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