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I don’t remember exactly when I attended my first funeral and made the long walk down to the casket to look at the recently deceased… maybe when I was a young adult. However, at this point in my life I’ve been to plenty of funerals and seen plenty of caskets.
I’m always kind of shocked by the cost of coffins. They can be quite ornate and I guess you can spend as much as you want to on them. Coffins of course are single use items… they end up being buried 6 feet underground where no one can see their magnificent beauty. And in that vessel are the remains of perhaps the most beloved person in the world to you… slowly disintegrating in that beautiful container.
Jesus told the Jewish religious elite that they were like beautiful coffins full of dead men’s bones. He meant by that… that on the outside they had the “right” look. They dressed appropriately, they washed their hands before their meals, they prayed like angels from Heaven and even cried with you at the loss of a loved one. But on the inside… they were rotten.
Looks can be deceiving unless God is the one doing the looking and when God looked at them they looked like folks who were destined to burn in the fires of Hell for eternity.
So what did God see that we can’t see?
- He saw people who were prideful and loved attention from others.
- They loved their money and wouldn’t spend it on the people who needed it for just the basics of living… food, clothing and shelter.
- They loved “judging” other people, like prostitutes, adulterers, the sick, etc. They were too holy to associate with those types lest somehow by association they too would be stained with uncleanness.
- They emphasized their favorite spiritual directives like tithing (giving 10% of everything they owned) and minimized God’s favorite spiritual directives… justice, mercy and faithfulness.
- They would fabricate lies to achieve their goals… like accusing Jesus of Blasphemy.
Well the reality is you don’t have to be God to see some of those things unless you are wearing rose tinted glasses and everything looks rosey to you.
I don’t remember anything about that first funeral I attended but I do remember my dad’s funeral. They said the embalmer did a great job and dad “looked good” but he didn’t look good to me. The only thing I like to remember about that open casket were the grandkids writing notes to their grandpa and sticking them in his suit jacket.
When I think of him I like to think of his great love for the Lord that manifested itself in the way he treated other people… with justice, mercy and faithfulness.
His coffin may be filled with dead men’s bones and a few tattered pieces of paper but that’s not him and that’s not where he is.
The most important person to look at is our selves. Let’s be sure to start with that person before we take on our brethren, family and friends. Let’s pull those rose tinted glasses off and take a long look at ourselves through the lens of God’s eyes which are found in his word and we can all conquer the curse of the coffin which is filled with dead men’s bones doomed to suffer for eternity.
Visitors to congregations are very important… especially local visitors. Local visitors are usually visiting either because they feel some acute need for a connection with God or they are looking for a place to become a member.
I love interacting with visitors. I try to put myself in their position and ask myself what I would want to see when visiting a congregation.
The first thing I would want to see is if anyone cared that I was there (besides the preacher). Like… how many people introduced themselves to me or… was it just a superficial greeting like… “Howdy glad to have you come back again.”
Someone who is artful in the mechanics of conversation will use the Socratic method of asking questions and letting them do most of the talking like… 1) Where are you from? 2) Oh you’re from in town? How did you hear about us? 3) Where have you been attending?
You also want to make a personal connection and ask a question like… what kind of work do you do? Oh! You’re a welder… so am I or if you are not a welder then you can introduce them to someone else who is a welder or whatever occupation they are.
The second thing I want them to see in our congregation is racial diversity. Especially in our day and age of charges of racism I want the visitor to see people of every color in our congregation.
Thirdly I want them to see that our hour of worship is inspiring. People are singing their hearts out. I don’t want them to hear a “canned” prayer but one that is heartfelt and inspiring and perhaps relates to things that are troubling about our society today… a contemporary prayer. I want them to hear a sermon that makes them want to come back and hear another.
Generally you only have one shot at a visitor so I want to try to make it as memorable as I can.
For the two individual visitors to day I asked them each individually if I could buy their lunches today. They both turned me down but that invitation should be burned into their memories. I don’t think I have ever visited a church where a member has invited me to dinner.
Usually I write my name and number down and give it to them and let them know I have lived here a long time and know the best mechanics, plumbers, AC people, etc. in town. Several have taken advantage of that offer.
I also try to find them on Facebook and send a friend request. In addition, I take a photo of their visitor card and share it on our private Parkway member page to give the rest of our team (who are on FB) an opportunity to get involved.
Visitors are very important. We might be able to help them with some spiritual need or we might be able to add them to our local army of Christian soldiers in our fight against Satan.
Take the opportunity to be hospitable because you may not get another chance and maybe… God sent that person to test and reward you.
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Sometimes the question is posed… if you could have any super power… what would you choose?
I always thought I would like the power to heal anyone of any kind of disease or any kind of suffering.
Can you imagine the good you could do if at the snap of your fingers you could heal someone of cancer?
Imagine if someone you loved had lost their mind to Alzheimer’s and couldn’t even recognize the people who loved them the most and you walked into the room and pressed your finger to their temple and all their lost memories came back?
Can you imagine the gratitude? If you cared about money you could charge anything you wanted to and the sick folks and their families would willingly pay twice that amount.
My Dad died when he was just 62 years old and if I could have him back… even if just for a visit to show him our families I would empty my bank account.
But … there’s a down side to gifts. What if you wanted to take your wife out to eat but couldn’t even sit down and eat a meal because people were dragging in all these sick folk to you?
Surely that must have been what it was like for Jesus and why he had to go to a mountain for a little alone time.
Even without the super power to heal… all people sometimes get tired of doing well. Hence, the scripture I quoted…”Do not grow weary or tired of doing well”.
People might get tired of doing good if it doesn’t seem appreciated or maybe if you find you don’t have enough time for your own needs… or maybe your family’s needs.
We might not have the super power of healing everyone we want to, but… *God does*… and maybe... just maybe he’s waiting to see how much good we’ll commit to before he makes any kind of commitment.
If I had the super power of healing I would drive down to Spohn Hospital and go room by room and heal every one there but since I don’t (and you don’t) have those kinds of powers what’s stopping us from exercising the powers that we do have? The power to visit the sick, the power to pray with the families and the power to help in any way we can?
If a power can have super results doesn’t that make it a super power? Sometimes we just have to do what we can do and leave the rest up to God.
I finished a book recently that describes why doctors think the way they do. One of the things illustrated was that General Practitioners had a tendency to accept whatever diagnosis that a specialist makes because they are board certified specialists… experts if you will. The problem is that specialists tend to be wrong 20% of the time.
I think a similar problem can exist among preachers, teachers and Christians in general. We have a tendency to accept the teachings of our own heroes of faith as being infallible. Perhaps a Preacher whose tutelage we grew up under or a noted Gospel Meeting preacher or maybe a preacher who wrote a book. Going back further… maybe someone who taught during the so called “issues” of the 1950s or even someone who taught during the restoration movement, etc.
In a medical condition a wrong diagnosis can lead to a life time of the wrong medications, continued poor health and maybe even death.
What if our great heroes of faith were wrong 20% of the time? How would that affect our spiritual health?
Study God’s word continuously. Pray to God for spiritual enlightenment. Don’t be afraid to listen to opposing views and don’t be afraid to change your mind.
Listen to your doctor but don’t be afraid to get a second, third or however many opinions you might need for your physical health and remember that your spiritual health is much more important than your physical health
Nadab and Abihu were two priests of God who had specific instructions about lighting incense and offering it to God.
Lev.10:1-2, states that they lit their incense with unauthorized fire and God killed them both with his own fire.
We don’t know their motivations or why they did what they did and I guess it really doesn’t matter. The thing that does matter is you have to follow God’s instructions and they didn’t.
Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land and brought the proceeds to the Apostles to be distributed to help the poor (Acts 5). The only thing was they fibbed about it. They claimed they were giving all of the proceeds but held back some of it. Like Nadab and Abihu God struck them both dead.
I suppose you could say that Ananias and Sapphira were guilty of the love of money and that love of money led them to tell a lie. I guess the only thing they loved more than money was their love of themselves… they wanted to look good.
God still gives specific instructions about what he wants from us. For one thing he wants us to be “cheerful” in our giving. He wants us to know that everything we have comes from him so that when the time comes to give a little bit of it back to him on a Sunday it’s an easy thing for us to do.
God doesn’t want us to give any kind of an offering in a public way because that kind of display feeds egos… humble people don’t do that.
So just what all does God want from us? That’s an easy one… he wants us. He expects us to live lives worthy of being his sons and daughters and if we’re not living like that then… well… he doesn’t really care what we put in the offering plate. Just ask Nadab, Abihu, Ananias and Sapphira if what you offer matters.
