good tidings of great joy to those who aren’t feeling it

If you’re at all familiar with the sitcom Friends, you know Chandler. The likable character, played by Matthew Perry, captured fans’ hearts through his youthful innocence and memorable lines. But his celebrity cost him dearly. Opioids and alcohol have very nearly done him in. In the opening lines of his memoir he writes, “I should be dead.”

The price tag on his trying to get sober has topped $9 million. Tragically, he has yet to find salvation in either drugs or their prevention.

In his recently-released memoir, 53-year old Perry confides to the reader:

That beatific moment is something I still seek. . . . I want that connection to something bigger than me because I’m convinced it’s the only thing that will truly save my life. I don’t want to die. I’m scared to die.
Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir

The “big terrible thing” in Matthew Perry‘s life might be substance abuse, but his heart-twisting confession reveals an even more terrible thing. How awful it must be to be so close to the door of salvation and not be able to find the door knob.

Not Chandler Bing, I thought. God, send a gospel preacher to him! Who has his ear? Who could tell him about the healing love of Jesus? But then: maybe he has heard it and didn’t choose Door Jesus. If so, well that’s a whole other “big terrible thing.”

What is needed here is a Christmas miracle.

The Christmas story is set against the background of night. Joseph was visited by an angel in the night. The shepherds watched their flocks by night. Mary and Joseph welcomed their little bundle into the world in the middle of the night.

But, suddenly, like the opening verses of our Bibles, there was light. And it was good.

Recently, I discovered that the tiny book of Haggai casts some of that light. Looking at it in a certain way, one might catch a glint of Christmas cheer.

Let’s take a look.

Haggai preached three short sermons to the people of God over three months, but he was given yet a fourth — really a sermonette — for a single individual. At the beginning of what is now our traditional Christmas week, Haggai gave Zerubbabel a gift-wrapped message from heaven.

I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations…On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.
Haggai 2:21-23

“Your ministry isn’t finished quite yet, Haggai. I have one more sermon for you to preach. It’s a sermon for a specific person. Go to him and let him hear the gospel of grace.”

That guy’s name is Zerubbabel, meaning “birthed in Babylon.”

What a beautiful story of grace. Like Zerubbabel, we each come into the world, citizens of ‘Babylon,’ steeped in sin. God’s mercy finds us there and gives us a new story, a new identity, a new home.

God called a man, whose name means “festival,” to go and cheer up a man who’s wearing all the weight of Babylon on his soul.

In this Christmas season, is the Lord perhaps sending you to someone who needs some good news? Could you possibly be their own personal angel at Christmas?

Sandy and I have a friend on social media. I’ll call her Cindy. Cindy has been our prayer warrior for years. Recently she entered a contest online hoping to win an expensive winter sweater. Turns out, she won the sweater. She shared the good news with us immediately.

I’ll be honest the last week or so have really been difficult! I can feel the black cloud of deep, dark depression settling in like it does every year at the holidays!! I’ve been praying & pleading that this year it not happen! That this year the holidays would be different! I’m trying so hard to be joyful & happy!! To believe they will be different!! To not let the depression settle in again! This win really helped!! I wanted that sweater so badly!! I hope that doesn’t sound crazy! It was like a hug from Jesus! Telling me it’s going to be alright!!

I shot off a message to her right away:

This doesn’t sound the least bit crazy! Anything that comes into your life that we can turn into praise to our Father is a gift from heaven. You know that “every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights” — even sweaters! This beautiful sweater delights your heavenly Father even more than it brings happiness to you. The Father knows how much you needed this win! He is for you, he is for you, he is FOR you!

Someone you might know is secretly afraid of dying. The stink of Babylon is on them and they need to hear it’s not their destiny. He or she needs to hear that God wants to shake their world in a good way.

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Matthew Perry self-diagnosed his soul’s great wound:

I have a never-ending need for attention, but it’s never the right kind of attention. It didn’t work. It didn’t fix that hole in me…

Do you have an incurable wound on your soul? Do you know someone who thinks — or you think — they are beyond salvation?

If Christmas tells us anything, it says GOD IS LOVE. He’s in a festive spirit and is eager to give you himself. People may fail you but he’s a true “Friend.” If you’re crying while everyone else is caroling, the Savior is sitting in that corner with you and whispering,

I’ve chosen you. You are a jeweled ring on my finger. I’ll never pawn you or throw you away. You are mine. Just watch and see what I’ll do. It’ll be epic.

Selah, beloved of God. I hope this has been a welcome message to you in this season of Advent. If I can pray for you, don’t hesitate to email me.

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losing one’s religion

If you googled Charles Templeton you would read about a gentleman who traveled with Billy Graham in his early years of ministry. People called them the ‘Gold Dust Twins,’ a term meaning they were inseparable and untiring in the work of evangelism.

While the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1946 dubbed Templeton among the “best used of God” and “most gifted,” he paid greater honor to his friend. Of Graham he wrote, “There is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust.”

doubt and defection

It all started to unravel two years later. ‘Chuck’ Templeton enrolled in Princeton seminary, a progressively liberal institution, in 1948. His studies watered the seeds of doubt already growing in his heart re: the goodness of God and the trustworthiness of scripture.

For many years, Charles Templeton battled with his demons. His internal struggles caused him great physical distress. A physician advised him to settle his spiritual issues before they killed him.

In 1957, the once prominent evangelical evangelist, the budding preacher of hope, declared himself agnostic. In 1996 his memoir, FAREWELL TO GOD: MY REASONS FOR REJECTING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, was published.

Most sadly, Charles (“Chuck”) Templeton died from complications to Alzheimer’s in 2001.

a grim reality

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance…
Hebrew 6:4-6, ESV

It is a frightening thought that we, given over to ourselves, could fall away like Charles Templeton. Our New Testament book of Hebrews has much to say on these matters.

While it is possible to be a truly good person, give witness to one’s personal confession of belief, have exemplary conduct and blameless character…you can still be utterly lost.

There are doctrines of demons and Potiphar’s wives and poisonous grifters and bright city lights that beset us on every side. Whispers of doubt, menacing flirtations and suggestive come-hithers abound. If not for God’s grace, we could easily become shipwrecked, stuck deep in the muck and mire of sin.

As Gandalf warned Frodo Baggins:

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

The grim reality is the Christian world is littered with spiritual shipwrecks; people who once professed Christ, now walking in darkness. To even these the gospel call goes out: “Turn! Turn! There’s mercy with Christ!”

There’s no indication Chuck Templeton ever repented and turned back to Christ. By all indication he died in his sin. Did he lose his salvation? No, he merely proved by dying in sin that, though a great and admirable man and exemplary evangelist once upon a time, these never bore the fruit of true salvation.

jesus I am resting, resting

Lee Strobel interviewed Chuck Templeton a couple of years before he died. In the interview Strobel asked him if he would like to believe. Templeton replied, “Of course! If I could, I would. I’m eighty-three years old. I’ve got Alzheimer’s. I’m dying, for goodness sake.”

There’s an eternal gulf between, “If I could…” and “I can’t, but you can, Jesus. I trust you.”

The writer of Hebrews speaks of resting. Jesus said, “Come to me and I will give you rest.” That’s it. That’s the tweet, as they say. Come to Jesus. Keep coming to Jesus. Don’t hide. Don’t run away. Don’t ignore him. Come to him. Find rest for your burdened soul.

This, then, is the crux of the sermon of Hebrews. Take great care and be very sure that you end up on the side of Jesus. Do not neglect so great salvation (Hebrews 2:3). Live each day, moment by moment in his love (Jude 21). There is a rest that comes from that (Hebrews 4:3).

I am resting because Jesus invited me to and I’m taking him at his word. Obviously I’m not trusting in my ability to be faithful to him but rather in his faithfulness to hold me and keep me from falling (Jude 24-25). His love draws me in so I am less inclined to wander away. The key is to keep looking to Jesus.

Keep taking your messes to Jesus your High Priest (Hebrews 4:15-16). He has more than enough grace to forgive and restore you. He understands. He sympathizes with your weakness. He knows you’re “prone to wander.” He can handle your doubts. Keep taking it to Jesus. He is a Savior who “deals gently” with us (Hebrews 5:2).

I am on Christ’s side. Better, he is on my side (Romans 8:31-34). I don’t live in fear that I will blow it and God will strike me down. I am sobered by stories like that of Templeton. I do not want to be that man. With God’s help and his constant grace, I rest in the truth that I am his and he is mine.

Jesus, I am resting, resting
in the joy of what thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
of thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee,
as thy beauty fills my soul,
for by thy transforming power,
thou hast made me whole.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
in the joy of what thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
of thy loving heart.

O how great thy lovingkindness,
vaster, broader than the sea!
O how marvelous thy goodness
lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in thee, Beloved,
know what wealth of grace is thine,
know thy certainty of promise
and have made it mine. [Refrain]

Simply trusting thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold thee as thou art,
and thy love, so pure, so changeless,
satisfies my heart;
satisfies its deepest longings,
meets, supplies its ev’ry need,
compasseth me round with blessings:
thine is love indeed.

Ever lift thy face upon me
as I work and wait for thee;
resting ‘neath thy smile, Lord Jesus,
earth’s dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father’s glory,
sunshine of my Father’s face,
keep me ever trusting, resting,
fill me with thy grace.

Jesus I Am Resting, Resting, Jean Sophia Pigott (whose brother, a missionary to China, lost his life with 76 other missionaries during the Boxer Rebellion of 1901)

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quiverfull

NOTE (6/5/23): In lieu of a certain documentary recently released regarding Bill Gothard and the IBLP’s various teachings — such as ‘quiverfull’ — I feel compelled to add this post is in no way influenced by his teachings!

I was reading an ‘anti-abortion’ scripture passage, when the Holy Spirit jostled my heart. A sudden parting of a curtain allowed me a peek inside a gospel mystery. In a quick instant my spiritual astigmatism vanished and I understood why God won’t march with the pro-abortion crowd.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
Psalm 127:3-5, ESV

If children are a gift from God, why stop at one? Why choose abortion? If you are able, have as many as you can! Double, triple, quadruple your gladness.

I mentioned the Holy Spirit entering the moment. His heart revealed the great gospel mystery in this. If children are among an earthly parent’s greatest pleasures, doesn’t it also say something about our Father and his heavenly family?

God, too, wants a “quiverfull” of kids! He wants his house teeming with children! Our Heavenly Father is a great big softie when it comes to parenthood. He just keeps adopting and adopting…and adopting…

He’s never birthed a mistake. Not one of his has ever been an inconvenience to him.

That’s all well and good, you say, but what do we make of this scripture?

Jesus traveled through cities and villages, teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone said to him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”
Luke 13:23, Common English Bible

We might expect Jesus to say something like, “Are you crazy? A few? Hardly a few, my good man.”

That’s not what he says, though.

Make every effort to enter through the narrow gate. Many, I tell you, will try to enter and won’t be able to.
Luke 13:24, CEB

So which is it? Does God want his house to be filled or does he want to limit who gets in? Well, based on Jesus’s teaching, both are true.

I’ve studied and puzzled and even lamented over this teaching for a long time. My conclusion is that there are many who believe in themselves — or religion — for their salvation.

By contrast only a comparatively few who, by submitting to the demands of justification — repentance and faith — can live with absolute, peace-filled assurance they are already and forevermore living in his house. That’s the difference between being in God’s family and eternal self-abortion.

Don’t forget the primary audience are Jews who are heavily influenced by their religion of works-righteousness. Consequently, they will be turned away at the door because they refused the gate (Jesus).

As for the “few who will be saved?” I’m looking at you Nicodemus. I’m also looking at you, Joseph of Arimathea. And you, Brothers James and Jude.

Don’t you know it took a lot of effort on their part to remain true to Jesus in spite of their affiliation with the sect of the Pharisees or as reluctant skeptics? Still, the Bible appears to give evidence to their true faith. They’re in God’s quiver.

There’s another guy in the Bible who testified that he made the grade among the religious folk, but had he not turned miraculously to Jesus, he would never have made the cut. I speak, of course, of Saul of Tarsus.

Do we really need to be reminded of the great effort Paul had to endure to be a follower of Jesus? He’s for sure in God’s great gospel quiver.

The eternal kingdom will look nothing like an old west Montanan territory with only a sprinkling of settlers spread out for miles and miles. Heavens, no. Our forever family will be a great big loud bunch of crazy shouting, dancing, and running kids. God wants it that way; he wants his house bulging at the seams.

I’ve shared a terrifying dream I had about Graham with some of you. About two or three nights after he passed away, I had a nightmare of him burning in hell. It was quite vivid; I could even hear him screaming from the abyss.

Then I remembered, or, more accurately, God reminded me he doesn’t inspire nightmares to provoke us to fear, the devil does. The accuser wanted me to think my son is lost forever.

The devil is a liar. While he wants our children dead, God is very pro-life. It’s not a political talking point to him, it is genuine. The Heavenly Father delights in bringing many sons and daughters into glory.

The devil wants you thinking you can do life on your own terms; God wants you to stop running.

The devil wants you falling from grace; God wants you falling into his arms.

The devil wants you to be a rebel; God wants you to know his rest.

The devil loves abortion; God is all about the quiverfull.