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You Can’t Handle the Truth

This week in my devotions I was reading in the book of Jeremiah.  Now if you have never read Jeremiah, it is not an easy book to read.  It is a bit of a downer.  Jeremiah was a prophet of the Lord and God gave him a lot of bad news to share with the people of Judah.  He prophesied about things like the destruction of Jerusalem, exile, and captivity.  Not very good news.  Even one of the most well-known verses from Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11),  comes as part of a letter to the exiles where Jeremiah is telling them to be patient and get comfortable where they are at, because they are going to remain in exile for 70 years. 

But the people didn’t want to hear what Jeremiah had to say.  He was threatened, put in prison, beaten, and even thrown into a cistern.   One of the passages that really stood out to me comes from Jeremiah 43:1-3a “When Jeremiah finished telling the people all the words of the Lord their God — everything the Lord had sent him to tell them — Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, ‘You are lying!'”

Now obviously one of the lessons we should learn from this passage is the faithfulness of Jeremiah in following the Lord even in spite of such opposition and such a difficult task, but instead I want to remind us of what we also can learn from the other side of the story.

Notice that the people called Jeremiah a liar.  Why?  Simply because they didn’t want to hear the message that he was bringing.  But truth is truth regardless of whether or not we like it.  Sometimes we need to hear tough things.  The truth is not always good news.  Sometimes it is painful and hard. 

There is a movie called “A Few Good Men.”  In that movie Jack Nicholson plays a colonel who is called as a witness in a trial.  He is being questioned by Tom Cruise who plays a JAG lawyer.  At one point in the questioning Cruise says he wants the truth and Nicholson tells him that he doesn’t want the truth and that he can’t handle the truth.

Is that true with us?  Do we say we want the truth, but in reality we really don’t want to hear the truth?  Maybe God has been speaking to you.  Maybe He has been trying to tell you some truth that you don’t want to hear.  My challenge is to be willing to hear the truth regardless of how easy it is to take.  Don’t close yourself off to bad news, or tough criticism, or strong rebuke if it comes from God.  The people of Judah needed to be disciplined.  They needed to learn a lesson.  They had strayed from God and that is why God allowed them to be exiled.  But Jeremiah 29:11 was still true as well.  God did know the plans He had for them and ultimately it was for their good.  And it is the same with us.  God knows what He is doing.  Trust Him and let Him help you to handle the truth.

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Canned Peaches

Have you ever eaten a canned peach?  They’re pretty good right?  My kids enjoy them so much that they even fight over the left over juice.  Canned peaches come in very handy during the colder months, when a variety of fresh fruit is much harder to come by.

I like canned peaches, but the other day I was peeling a fresh peach for my daughter and I was thinking about canned peaches.  Have you ever thought about the difference?  Canned peaches and fresh peaches don’t even seem like the same thing.  They have very different flavors.  I am sure it has to do with the canning procedure, but whatever the reason, it changes the flavor and makes them different.

But not only are they different, they also just aren’t as good.  There is something really wonderful about eating a big, juicy, fresh peach, with the juice running down your face.  You know what I’m talking about!  Canned peaches are pretty good, but they pale in comparison to the real thing.

Imagine if all you ever knew was canned peaches in your life and then all of a sudden you get your first taste of a fresh peach.  Wow, what a difference!  And you are thinking to yourself, where has this freshness been all my life?  Why have I settled for canned peaches, when fresh peaches are so great? 

So while I was standing there peeling that fresh peach for my daughter and thinking about canned peaches, another thought came to me.  How often do we settle for canned peaches in our spiritual lives?  I think that happens alot.  We are satisfied with our relationship with God being pretty good.  We read our Bible, we pray, and we go to church and participate in worship.  Everything is pretty good.  And we are satisfied with pretty good.  But is that all there is?

I want to challenge you today, to take some time and consider if your relationship with God is more like canned peaches or fresh?  Does God have more in store for you that you are not enjoying simply because you are satisfied with your spiritual life being just pretty good?  Consider David, who in Psalm 42 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”  Does that sound like a man who is looking forward to some canned peaches?

This Sunday, I will be talking about a new way of looking at prayer.  It fits in well with this idea of canned peaches compared to fresh.  I don’t want to ever be satisfied with canned peaches, when there is freshness available to me.

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Hospitality

My wife Julie was diagnosed with pneumonia last Friday.  The doctor told her that she had to go home and go to bed.  She was told to treat it as if she was in the hospital even though she was at home.  I know that many people have been praying for her and thankfully she has begun to feel a little better.  The fever finally broke and while the cough is still prevalent, at least some of the pain has subsided. 

Now of course, when mommy is laid up the rest of the home is put in a tough position as well.  The kids still need to be taken care of, the house still needs to be cleaned, the laundry needs to be done, and of course everyone still needs to eat.  We have four children, ages 2-10 and so you can imagine that while Julie has been recuperating, my life has been kind of out of whack.  I have been trying to be both mommy and daddy for the last few days as well as taking care of a sick wife. 

Thankfully my work is flexible and I have been able to do a lot of work from home so that the kids are still okay.  I also can multi-task, at least to some extent, which means that I can get laundry and other household tasks done while also working on my sermon and even writing this blog. 

But one of the reasons these last few days have gone so well is because of the ministry of hospitality provided to us by our River Church family.  Julie’s parents live nearby, but they were on their way out of town when Julie was diagnosed.  Julie’s mom offered to postpone our trip, but I told her to go ahead and go, because while it would be convenient to have her here, we also have a church family here with us and they have really stepped up. 

We have had a few people volunteer to take the kids for a time so that I could get work done or run errands.  And we have had several families that have brought us meals so that I did not have to think about cooking dinner.  What a blessing everyone has been.

This is part of what it means to “be the church.”  We are called to show hospitality to one another.  We are supposed to care for one another.  It isn’t always easy.  It isn’t always convenient.  But we do it because we are called to “be the church.”  I am so thankful to our church family for the blessing they have been during this time of need.  Thanks church!

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Leadership Summit

So this past week I was at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit Simulcast in Bloomington.  It was a great conference featuring speakers like Bill Hybels, Jim Collins, Tony Dungy, Andy Stanley, and TD Jakes among others.  The Summit is a nice blend of men and women who approach leadership from different perspectives.  Topics included change, endurance, mentoring, tension, and motivation, again, among others.  Several of the names on the docket for this conference were ones that I recognized, but there were a few that I had never heard of before.  And suprisingly it was some of those that impacted me the most.

One of my favorite sessions happened to be an interview with Terri Kelly, the CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates (Gore-Tex).   I actually ran out of space trying to taking notes from some of the points she was making.  The interesting thing is that she was not coming at this from a church leadership viewpoint, but rather from one that was purely business.  But so much of what she was saying fits with the church as well.

For instance, she pointed out that a good leader doesn’t simply tell people what to do, but rather provides influence about what is important.   That is so true of my job as pastor and the leadership of the church.  We need to provide influence about what is important.  We need to be listening to the Lord and seeing where He is at work and what He wants us to do, and bring that to the church so that we can follow the Lord together.  In order for that to happen we need to have a common foundation, which is the Lord, and a common set of values.  We talk often about our vision and purpose and the reason is because we all need to be on the same page so that we have a framework for making decisions about what we are going to do and not do.

Another great presentation was an interview with Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and author of the book, “Winning.”  He said that it is the leaders’ job to energize people, not through cheerleading or hyping something up, but by getting them to feel the vision. 

What a great concept that is.  Do you feel the vision?  I hope so.  We, at The River, believe we are called to “be the church.”  That is who we are.  We are committed to bringing maximum glory to God through knowing Christ and making Him known to every man, woman and child in the community of Chaska and to the regions beyond.  We will do that through authentic community, intentional discipleship, Spirit-filled worship, Kingdom praying, and missional living.  I hope you feel the vision.  Let’s be the church!

Another great presentation was with Blake Mykoskie, the founder of Tom’s Shoes Inc.  He made a great point about asking people to do audacious things.  I really liked that.  Tom’s Shoes gives away a pair of shoes for every pair of shoes that is bought.  That is pretty audacious.  I want us, as a church, to step up and do audacious things.  Obviously, it needs to be in line with what God is calling us to do, but I believe we sometimes miss out on big things because we are afraid to step out of the boat and trust God to help us walk on water. 

All in all, this was a great conference.  I am really glad that I had an opportunity to be there.  I pray that God will help me to be the leader He has called me to be and that He will use me to lead the church in becoming the church that He is calling us to be.