Oh, my goodness. I’m late with this mostly because I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. I got back yesterday morning from a week at Epworth Forest with eleven of our Senior High youth and other adult leaders. It was a wonderful and educational week. The main learning is that I am not as young as I used to be. My goodness, the constant breakneck pace of camp and the late nights and early mornings like to nearly killed me. I thought I was doing fine, actually. Getting by, hanging in, enjoying the time. But after getting home (and spending the rest of Friday wrestling with Comcast - which no doubt contributed) and dropping off multiple times I went to bed only to be unable to function this morning. Wow. Did anyone get the number of that truck? Yeah, it was called youth camp!
But you didn’t log on here to listen to me whine about my adrenalin crash today. You came for something else. For an opportunity to reflect on a few verses from the bible. Something less intense than 24/7 young people wrestling with a faith that both excites and energizes. Something more quiet and internal. No flashing lights and smoke machines here in the Late Night Bible Study, just quiet contemplation. Right?
There is an irony here that the weekend back from the high energy of “That Thing” - which is what they are calling camp these days - is also the week we launch a new sermon series titled “Ordinary Time.” From extreme to ordinary, from sublime to mundane. Hmm, why would we want to make such a leap? Aren’t we all about sensation? All about the big picture, the wide screen? Seems un-American, on this Independence Day, to scale it back. American exceptionalism is the order of the day. The frequent explosions surrounding me indicate that my neighbors would agree.
Rockets red glare. We sing about it. We celebrate it. The big explosions, the power and light. How can the day to day life of an average ordinary follower of Jesus ever measure up to our heroic imagination, ever compete with an extreme world in which we live? It can’t! Short answer, it can’t. Which is why we spend our lives thinking we are missing something. Thinking we are falling short as followers. Thinking we are wash-outs as witnesses.
But what if Jesus wasn’t calling us to climb mountains and swim oceans? What if we weren’t really to fight demons or battle God’s enemies? What if we were just supposed to follow Him? Day by day, step by step. The little victories of faithfulness and incremental growth of discipleship. Just live every day, every day filled with the presence of Christ. What might that look like?
That’s what we’re about this month. Ordinary Christians living ordinary lives and yet alive in Christ. Is such a thing possible? And if so what does it look like? Or feel like? And is it something we settle for or strive for? The answer might surprise you.
To help us we have a few verses from the letter to the Colossians. In fact this little letter with be our guide for the whole series. No considered one of the highlights of the New Testament, it is nonetheless useful for our purposes. There is some debate as to whether this was actually written by Paul. And frankly I don’t know either. But I’ll take the easy way and talk about Paul anyhow. Just seems simpler that way.
We are in the first chapter of the letter. The usual greetings begin the letter, and then the promise of prayers takes the stage. And in those prayers is the call to live. To live a life of fruitfulness. To live a life of presence and hope in Christ. Then there is a reference and commendation to a leader, a pastor who taught and cared and helped the community in Colossae.
Our text begins right after that. “For this reason” is not really a beginning place. Not the launch of a journey. Not the start of an adventure. Rather it is more like a continuing on. Another day, another step, just keep going.
Colossians 1:9-14 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
For this reason means what Paul heard about them. He heard that they loved one another, and that they loved him in the Spirit. He heard that they bore fruit, that they served and helped and healed and taught. He heard that they lived lives worthy of the gospel. And because of that, because of the love that lived in them and came forth from them, Paul praised God for them, and asked that God continue to pour out into them all that they need to live. Paul prayed that they might have wisdom and understanding, have the knowledge of God’s will, and that they keep growing, keep moving forward.
But it was the middle verse and a bit that caught my attention for this ordinary series. “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father...” There are some words in there that describe the life of the ordinary Christian, at least as I understand it.
First Paul wishes them to be strong. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power. Wow, all the strength that God’s power can bestow! All the strength. Hardly ordinary. God’s glorious power is for changing the world, isn’t it. It is for mighty deeds and feats of faithfulness that take the breath away of any onlooker. Be strong with all the strength. Superman level here.
So what is to be done with this strength? Endure with patience. Wait, what? Endure? If you’ve got all the glorious power of God, all the strength that comes from Him, you’re going to do more than endure, aren’t you? Endure sounds like surrender. Endure sounds like put up with, outlast, tolerate, wade through, stomach - as in I’ve got to stomach this medicine that’s horrible but good for me. Endure. But then Paul makes it worse, endure with patience. Yikes, we can’t even grumble about it. About our lives that are messy to say the least, unfair, heavy, burdensome. We’ve got to endure. With patience.
But he doesn’t even stop there. Endure with patience, while joyfully giving thanks. Oh my heavens. Endure and be joyful? Is such a thing even possible? I mean, I know how to endure and let everyone know I’m enduring, looking for brownie points, or sympathy. But now I’m supposed to endure and be joyful? Supposed to endure without dwelling on the burden, but giving thanks for the life, giving thanks with joy? How is that supposed to happen?
By remembering whose we are. By remembering who is with us. Joyfully giving thanks to God means being aware of that Presence. It means knowing that we are not alone. Not forgotten, not abandoned. Joyfully giving thanks to God means that we know that our help comes from the hills, as the Psalm says, the hills where God dwells. I lift up my eyes. Enduring with patience and joy means being able to lift up your eyes.
We are also reminded that this Presence is most often felt through the community of faith around us. That’s the inheritance of the saints of light. But not just those who have gone before, but those who are around us every day, every week when we gather to sing God’s praise and bask in God’s glory. The glory that shines from the faces of the faithful who walk with us every single ordinary day.
Another rocket exploded outside just now. A big one, loud one. Extraordinary. There will be no rockets in church tomorrow. Just an ordinary act of worship of the extraordinary God. Joyful, but ordinary. Like us.
Shalom,
Derek
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