Coronado Bible Church

 

Driving as a Competitive Sport: Games have never sparked much competitiveness in me. I was not driven to chase the ball. I would, however, engage at a high level when I believed my team was being treated unfairly. That still shows up in my driving.

 

Navigating the Interamericanna should be considered as an event in the next Summer Olympics. It requires many qualities associated with a sporting event; concentration, agility, honed reflexes, rapid response time and peripheral acuity. Those traits are all helpful and necessary in safely navigating in Panama. Competitiveness is the one sporting trait that isn’t helpful or productive … and I’ve got it.

 

Things begin peacefully. “This is not a race,” I remind myself. The internal coach tells me that the imprudence of others need not determine my speed. I observe the posted limits … roughly. I allow others to speed ahead and become police bait. I am tranquil.

 

Then, as I am passing a vehicle functioning with only three of it’s six cylinders, I see it. Not always, but quite often, it is a Toyota Highhander or a Volkswagen Runamok. Something about paying that much for a vehicle must make you believe you really are entitled. I digress … the point is, the driver of that gargantuan vehicle does not realize that it’s okay to take their foot off the gas and wait for a safe time to pass. It is much better, in their mind, to shoot the half-car-length gap between my vehicle and the basically stationary object in the other lane.

 

When I see this coming, something snaps. My team is about to be treated unfairly. A road-foul is about to be committed and since no referee is in sight, discipline falls to me. Perhaps there’s some Canadian in me … because a little part of me wants to check the offending vehicle into the sideboards. My more measured response? Close the gap … at all costs! Like Gandalf confronting the Balrog in Moria, my mind shouts, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” My accelerator synaptically follows suit.

 

I have invented several plausible justifications for my actions that you would all gladly adopt as your own … but I’m not here to justify, I’m here to confess. Confession is good for the soul … I hope it will be good for my driving. I don’t need to control the other driver … I need to control my anger directed at the other driver for his or her unsafe choices.

 

 

 

The Law of Joy: Morning’s grey light had just begun to dawn when the sermon started. Every person old enough to understand was there. The scrolls were opened and read and explained … and read and explained. There were no complaints about the hard pews – the people were standing. Standing, attentive, engaged, eager to listen … to what some had never heard. It was high noon when Ezra the priest finally rolled up the scroll containing the law of Moses and by then the people were weeping. It was not because of the length of the sermon … it was because they recognized the depth of their sin. A generation of exiles were back in the promised land, being exposed anew to all that God expected and all that they had not done. Their tears were genuine tears of repentance.

 

What came next might surprise you. The leaders told the people to stop weeping and go have a party. They were to break out “choice foods and sweet drinks” and invite those less fortunate to party with them. Nehemiah, the governor said the most extraordinary thing …

 

 

God, through His prophets, had so often begged his people to repent. Here’s one beautiful example where they did. Then, He told them to dry their eyes and go throw a party. This too, was part of the law. Far from being somber and melancholy, the relationship God sought with His people had built in times of pleasure seeking. Not lawless hedonism, but times of taking pleasure in God’s good gifts in God’s good presence (Deut. 12:7; 14:24–26). As odd as it may sound, joy was commanded.

 

Sorrow over sin is right and good … if it turns us back to God. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret …” 2 Corinthians 7:10. The sorrow of repentance is not meant to endure but to lead to Joy. That Joy is one of the greatest sources of strength in our relationship with God. Have you sinned? Turn back … and then rejoice! Rejoice in the God who forgives!

 

 

 

 

I’ve always been fascinated with the effects of light. I used to stare at brightly lit scenes, close my eyes and examine the negative images in my head. The detail can be incredible. Later in life when I got into photography, I noticed that a camera flash fired in a totally dark room created a vivid enough image on your retina to allow you to navigate safely through the space … even though you had been plunged back into utter darkness.

 

Last week near the end of the sermon, I said that gazing at the glory of Christ has transformative effects on your life. By gazing … I do not imagine an experience like John’s, but the encounters we have with Jesus as we seek to know Him in His Word. Long concentration on His attributes, or some flash of insight that the Holy Spirit brings; these stay with us even in our darkness. God blesses the reading of His Word and deepens our knowledge (cognitive and experiential) of who Jesus is. As we see Jesus truly, as His image and character are burnt into our hearts … we become more like Him and carry His image into a darkened world.

 

Again, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Pastor John Piper writes about this verse,

 

 

Start gazing!

 

 

 

One-twelfth of 2018 is nearly gone! Just eleven more precious months. Approximately …

The numbers sound large … but they are not. In the impatient years of youth, my parents used to warn, “The years really fly by.” Because of the accompanying smiles and laughter, I thought they were joking. They were not!

 

In the twenty years of ministry at my former church I performed over 150 funerals and about as many weddings. You gain a certain perspective about the speed of life from being immersed in such events. At one wedding I was exclaiming about it making me feel old to perform a ceremony for a girl that I’d taught in Jr. High Bible study. Her mother turned with a comically perturbed expression and exclaimed, “Get over it! How do you think I feel?” She didn’t have to say another word. I could almost see the images flashing by behind her pupils … the natal unit, the first day of school, her daughter’s first crush, prom … all flying too quickly for belief.

 

Once I sat in bemused disbelief listening as family members of a deceased 90-year-old exclaimed, “We just didn’t see this coming.” In a way, I got it. I think that “irony of disbelief” was where my parents’ laughter came from. Our essence stands motionless a few feet from the tracks as years whistle by like an express train. We live in the balance between the feeling of eternal youth and relentless erosion. It is wise to be aware that life has a limited warrantee and that our expiration the date is in God’s hands.

 

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16

 

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

 

 

 

There are hundreds of depictions of Cain and Abel online. This one, by artist Reuben David, was unique. Most paintings of the subject depict the moment of the murder and can be quite grotesque. The power of this depiction is in the setting. The horror of the first murder surrounded by the golden, almost heavenly, glory of a sun emblazoned field. Desperate ugliness in the midst of beauty; that has always been the puzzling contrast for me. How could it have happened … not far from Eden?

 

The second thing that gripped me about this painting was the remorseless and determined stride of Cain. His body still taught from the dreadful deed, still clutching the stone. This is the moment after and Cain has carelessly turned from all natural feelings of familial love.

 

Read Genesis 4 and marvel for yourself at the conundrum of Cain. He had direct access to God … even direct counsel from God and yet he became a murderer. Our present world still reverberates with Cain’s cry of rebellion. Like Cain, we are …

 

It’s all there in the story … and it’s all here today in our world. It is ancient and contemporary. God graciously challenged Cain about what was growing in his heart and said, “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Don’t follow Cain. If God is dealing with you about a seedling sin, don’t let it mature into bitter fruit.

 

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.  1 Corinthians 10:13