Give me a Clean Heart

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Thy presence,

And do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation,

And sustain me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways,

And sinners will be converted to Thee. 

(Psalm 51:10-13, NASB)

Next week begins the season of Lent – Ash Wednesday is next week - 14 February, Valentine’s Day on the civic calendar.  While many of us may come from traditions of faith where we aren’t accustomed to paying lots of attention to the Christian Calendar, hopefully we do come from a place in life that has taught us of our need for God’s grace.

These words from Psalm 51 were first spoken by King David, after his “Lent-like meeting” with the prophet Nathan. To spend these 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday in pursuit of a “clean heart” and a “steadfast spirit within us” would not be a bad exercise in spiritual discipline. The potential is that we might encounter the presence of God in these 40 days in new and refreshing ways because we are so focused on Him. That would not be a bad result of such discipline.

All of us perhaps would be blessed by a sense of being restored to “the joy of Thy salvation” and sustained by God to have a “willing spirit.” Not to be trite – but there is a sense that suggests if King David – a man after God’s own heart despite his failures – could be blessed by such gifts, then surely we can.

At the end of Peter’s second sermon in Acts (3:12-26) the apostle describes our potential with God when we “repent and return” with rather glorious vocabulary. Our sins are wiped away and “times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Peter then reminds those listening to him that we await “the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient times.”

When David seeks out God in order to be restored to the joy of his salvation, it may very well be that he is anticipating what you and I experience in coming to Christ. “Seasons of refreshing” in which we anticipate God’s “complete restoration.”

May I encourage you during this season of Lent – or if you don’t like that term, simply in these days leading up to Easter – to join with me in seeking to discover anew “the seasons of refreshing” that are to characterize our life in Christ. May we discover with new power and new opportunities for influence, the “joy of our salvation.”

Being Right in the Wrong Way

Quite a few years ago, my friend and “preaching hero,” Myron J. Taylor wrote a wonderful article for Christian Standard titled “Speaking the Truth in Love.” It was classic Myron Taylor – connected to the text in Ephesians 4:15 that says “speaking the truth in love,” well thought out, well written, and challenging. 

More than a few people wrote “letters to the editor,” – some of which were published – suggesting that Taylor wasn’t quite “true to the faith” and was allowing something as “warm and fuzzy” as “love” cause him to compromise “truth.” Those aren’t exact quotes of those letters, but do reflect the spirit they portrayed.

Apparently those folks would have had issues with Paul. After all, he is the one who said, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects to him who is the head even Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15, NASB)

If you follow social media at all, you likely are exposed to a whole lot of “speaking something like the truth, without love.” Over the past few weeks I’ve seen “Jesus really isn’t ‘the reason for the season’ the fact that I am a sinner is;” “as a husband, if I’m not ‘correcting my wife’ it could cause her to end up lost,” “Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem as good citizens, just to pay taxes,” and lots more. All of this kind of “truth” is connected to some Scripture text in a way that suggests it is “absolute” in terms of its “truthfulness.” None of it was said with any authentic indication of what “in love” had to have meant to Paul.

Where did we get the idea that “truth” and “love” are competing ideals? In this Ephesians text, Paul’s phrase “speaking the truth” employs a word group that is ultimately centered in Jesus Himself, who said, using a noun form of this verb, “I am the truth.” (John 14:6) This particular verb is used only twice in the entire New Testament – Ephesians 4:15 and Galatians 4:16. You can’t read either of these texts in their context and think that Paul thinks that truth and love are competing ideals.

The “in love phrase” in Ephesians 4 is the word for love we all likely have heard a time or two in church – agape. The word isn’t so much the “warm and fuzzy” sense we often associate with love, but rather, “intelligent good will” as my first Greek teacher, Jim Evans (long-time EES Executive Director) insisted it meant. If I’m putting the meaning of these two words – “speaking the truth” and “in love” – together appropriately, then my goal for speaking the truth ought to be centered in good will for those who hear (or read) my words.

Interestingly, the goal of “speaking the truth in love” is that those who hear us will grow up in all aspects to Christ, the head of the Church. When I see truth and love as competing ideals, my “speaking in the truth” likely sounds more like condemnation than encouragement to grow up and be more and more like Christ – in all aspects of my life. When I see truth and love as two sides of the same coin – the potential is that I sound like I want you to join me in growing up to be more and more like Christ, who is “truth” and “love” in a rather remarkable fashion.

Going back to my friend Myron Taylor – I heard him preach many times. I read lots of his sermons. His articles in “The Cathedral Messenger” became the impetus for lots of my own thinking and preaching. I’ve read the books he wrote.

He was committed to “truth” but did it in a way that let me know he loved me (and the truth) enough to want it to attract me to it rather than feel condemned by it. 

Most of us reading this can no doubt make quite a list of things we believe to be “the truth” about who Jesus is and what difference he makes. Like is true for me, truth probably fascinates you as you think about “the God who made the world and everything in it” (Acts 17) and the fact that He cares about us.

But . . . if in speaking that “truth” I don’t sound as though I love you enough to want you to embrace it as truth in your life – then “truth” is spoken, but not “heard.” Thus, we find ourselves “being right in the wrong way.”

My resolution for the new year upon us – speak the truth in love!

Getting Out Of Church!

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving – Black Friday as we call it in our culture – and after the crowds had become less intense, my two daughters and I went to Target. As we were rather aimlessly walking around the store, we ran into a Mom and her toddler son with whom we go to church. 

The little boy is at the stage where non-stop talking is the norm and he was talking up a storm with my two daughters and his mom, when all of a sudden he realized I was there. Looking directly at me, he said, “How did you get out of church?”  I replied with, “That’s a great question.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that question. I’m confident that my toddler friend assumes that since he only sees me “at church” then somehow it is amazing that on Black Friday I was “out of church.” But could that innocent question from a toddler that made me, my two daughters, and his Mom laugh actually be one of those “out of the mouths of babes” moments? Especially during this season of the year where Advent quickly rushes us toward Christmas – a season filled with opportunities to be Jesus to the world around us – if only we could “get out of church.”

One of my favorite church plant stories in Acts is the one found in Acts 16 about Paul and his missionary companions as they visit Philippi. Luke tells us that Paul and his friends had been in the city for several days, perhaps doing some research about where they might find a place of opportunity. On the Sabbath Day, Luke says “they went outside the city gate.” Interestingly, Luke uses a verb that means “to go outside of” and then adds a preposition that means “out of.” What we would see as redundancy in English may very well be emphatic about “go out of, out of the city gates.”

Their research (“we supposed there was a place of prayer” in 16:24) suggested there might be a place where there would be an opportunity to say a word about Jesus. Sure enough, they found a place of prayer by the river where a group of “God-worshipping women” met. Most likely, these are Gentile women who like the God of Israel but aren’t too impressed with His people, the Jews. 

Amazingly, in a cross-cultural exercise of faith, Paul and his friends sit down with the women, have a conversation, and the outcome is that Lydia and her family become believers and are baptized and the church who would later receive the wonderful epistle we call Philippians was born. 

Crazy things happen when we are willing to get “outside” of whatever places we normally allow to define us. For the church in our day, many of us do allow the place where we worship on Sunday to be the defining reality of our faith.

What if, during Advent as it leads up to Christmas, we decided to get “outside of out of the church” (to use Luke’s redundancy) and find a place where we can go and have a conversation about Jesus that leads to people coming to know him as Redeemer?

Even more challenging, what if – like Paul and his companions – we found a place to have that conversation that was challenging to our cultural norms? That could be a group whose ethnicity is different. Or a group from a different socio-economic category than we occupy. Or what about people with different politics? Or people of different faiths?

It’s one thing to talk about the division and tension in our culture. It really isn’t hard to see. But it is a whole different thing to have the courage to do something about it!

Perhaps my little toddler buddy was on to something. We all ought to “get out of the church” for a moment and find someone with whom we can have a conversation about Jesus!

After all - we insist that "He is the reason for the season!"