Rejoicing with Rejoicers
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text is Romans 12:15: Love must be sincere…Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. One of my professors warned, “There will be days when you do a funeral in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. You will need to weep in the morning and rejoice in the afternoon. Your tears and your joy better be sincere.” That advice comes directly from our text for today. Paul is laying out different shades of Christian love which is not rooted in feelings but in a decision of the mind to behave in certain ways. Empathy is “the ability to...
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Involved in the Mission
Wilderness Wanderings
Our scripture is from Colossians 3:12-14: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” When are we involved in God’s mission? Christians often think that only activity connected to the church is involved in God’s work. The implication is that God is not interested in our daily lives. But this is far from the truth. In the beginning, we were made to be involved in...
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A Dunked Community
Wilderness Wanderings
A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Acts 1:1-11. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it . Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: Dive In Take a stab at defining Christian communal identity. What comes to mind when you hear the words ‘mission’ and ‘missionary’? How should we understand it? The disciples ask Jesus about the kingdom. How does he shift their focus? Four responses to the...
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Sabbath & Generosity
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text is Deuteronomy 15:1, 4-5: “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts…there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.” Old Testament laws are not always easily applied to us because they concern Israel as a nation state. These laws about the Sabbath year, when debts are cancelled and land is returned to the families it was originally given to, are such...
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Blessing Enemies
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text is Romans 12:14 “Love must be sincere…Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Love has many colours. Having explored hospitality, Paul ups the ante. Love is no easy thing. It flies in the face of the normal human reaction to negative things: anger and revenge. Let’s start with a brief story about revenge. On a Friday early in 1982, Kevin got drunk, got into his car, went for a drive and killed an 18-year-old. He was convicted of manslaughter and drunk driving. Since he was only 17,...
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A Word of Encouragement
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text comes from Romans 15:2, “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.” This verse is written for the church community. Yet, Paul uses the word neighbour, which is rarely used except in the commandment, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” So, we can apply this instruction to contexts outside the church. It a good word of wisdom for daily living. How might we apply it to our workplaces, communities in which we volunteer, and even in our homes? It is important to recognize that we build others up without desire for...
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Who Do You See?
Wilderness Wanderings
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Leaving Egypt Behind
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text is Deuteronomy 5:15: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” Egypt is difficult to forget – for the Israelites; also for us, Egypt seeps back into our bones. Egypt is brick building. Quotas. Meet your quota. Exceed your quota and you might get rewarded. But if you don’t meet your quota, you will be punished, severely. Brick building. Endless brick building. Mr. Julius Caesar Dithers in the comic strip...
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It's Not about You
Wilderness Wanderings
Today our text is Romans 12:9a, 13 Love must be sincere…Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. We return to hospitality. Why? Because culturally, hospitality is mostly about the one hosting, whereas Christian hospitality is about the one being hosted. Let’s flesh this out some more. Hotels and restaurants are part of the hospitality industry. They seek to impress customers so that they will return. Likewise, we want to impress people so they will associate with us. Hospitality is largely understood as having people over. More importantly, people we...
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Good Works
Wilderness Wanderings
Our text comes from Genesis 2:15, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. and Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Well, its another Monday. Rumor has it that many of us do not like Mondays. We do not like the return to the grind of work. The weekend is relief, Monday is back to it. Yet, it was not meant to be this way. Created in the image of God, each of us was created to be productive. This does not refer only to paid labour. We were...
info_outlineWhile they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you” (Luke 24:36).
Most of us live with a fear of failure. The need to succeed is strong. We don’t want to be embarrassed. Think about the stress that report card season causes for teachers, students and parents. Or take field day. When I was in grade school, the day was all about first, second and third place ribbons. One year, they started handing out participation ribbons so that no student would go home ribbon-less. They were not put on display. We were not fooled; they smelled of failure.
In the Christian life, we have the same problem. We need to succeed. How many of us haven’t quit devotions because we can’t pray as well as the next person? Or we miss a couple of days of Bible reading and before we know it feelings of failure set in. We don’t start again until some motivational speaker gets us back on track. We tried witnessing once; it was a disaster. Never again.
But what if we could see a different picture? What if we see Jesus entering the locked room his disciples were hiding in? He didn’t wait for them to get their act together. He met them in their failure and doubt and sent them out as his witnesses. What if he had let Peter sink that day Peter walked on water and then got filled with fear? Jesus doesn’t do that. He reached out his hand and caught him (Matthew 14:31).
Our God recognizes our weaknesses and proneness to failure. Thus, he is described as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8). Even Abraham, that Old Testament great, failed in his walk with God. But he was not abandoned. He learned from his failures; they helped him grow in faith.
Many of our unbelieving co-workers expect perfection from us. We lean into this heresy when we refuse to forgive ourselves. One of the ways that we can portray the character of our God is not getting bogged down in our shortcomings. This does not mean that we should take sin lightly, but to know in our very bones that it does not have the last work. When we let him down, Jesus reaches out and catches us.
Surely, if the world can see a people who believe more firmly in the grace of God than the taunting of the evil one, they will want to know our God. When we fail, hear the words of Jesus, “Peace be with you.” The Spirit will pick you up and send you out again.
As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:
Wherever God takes you today, may He fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit and that you may live carefully—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity.