Faith and Reality
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedToday I want to talk about faith and reality.
When I moved to New England
I began meeting alot of people who were
Christians
but they told me they were mad at God.
They told me that they had faith for something
and they prayed
and they declared,
and in the end
reality hit them hard.
Things just didn't go the way they thought.
And they were mad
and they blamed God.
Artists and creative people are interesting people.
We get an idea in our head
and we are not settled until the idea is manifested.
And for some artists, the artistic vision
can be a problem.
You see,
life
and people
are not perfect.
Some artists get into drama
and muscle through to make it happen.
And some step on people to get there.
And others melt down and turn inward.
And then you add all kinds of weird Christian
beliefs and teaching about faith,
and God's will
and it get's pretty toxic.
And then
you add Christmas on top of that.
And pinterest,
and old movies
and the ridiculous pressure
from retailers
who refuse to let you call Christmas
Christmas
but expect you to go into debt so you can have a
magical holiday.
It becomes too much to bear.
This is why Christmas is often one of the most stressful times of the year.
Christmas was never perfect.
This year the last Sunday of advent
does go right to the birth of Jesus.
Matthew says
"The birth of Jesus Christ happened this way."
Joseph discovered that Mary
was pregnant
by the Holy Spirit.
What happens when your faith, your expectations,
and reality collide?
When you look at an Eastern Orthodox
icon of the birth of Jesus
Mary is big,
in the cave.
Joseph is small,
sitting outside
head in his hands
looking forlorn.
And over his shoulder is Satan
whispering in his year
sowing doubts about the Virgin birth.
This isn't the plaster saint in church,
this is reality.
The scripture does not give us much information about Joseph.
All we know is this:
Joseph,
based on two different genealogies,
one in Matthew and one in Luke
is a descendant of Abraham and a descendent of David.
All we really know
is that Joseph is a righteous
Jewish man
and from that we can make a few conclusions.
Joseph,
the young man
has a dream
to a have a wife
a family,
and also carry on the family line
because he is a descendent of David.
And for a second temple Jewish man
this was a very big deal.
We are living in a post Marxist world that sees
marriage and family as a social construct.
The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
describes marriage and family this way
when talking about Abraham:
" . . . what the Torah does say about Avraham is found in the very essence of his name, “Av” in Avram and Avraham, which translates to “father”. The Torah gives us one very clear explanation for God’s choice of Avraham: He was chosen because he would be a great father. . .
"Judaism elevates the role of parenthood to a sacred realm. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah – the anniversary of Creation – we read of two mothers, Sarah and Hannah, and their sons’ births, as if to say: Every life is a universe. If you wish to understand the creation of the universe, think about the birth of a child. Within Judaism, the proper understanding of Hashem is encapsulated in the intimate, miraculous experience of parenthood. With its raw power and beauty, childbirth becomes a mirror reflecting God’s creative love.
Parenthood, especially the dedication shown by Jewish parents, transforms ordinary life into a sanctified existence. Family is, within Judaism, high religious art, full of drama and beauty."
And so,
the birth of Jesus happened this way,
Joseph is looking forward to the day
when he will have a son,
an heir,
a wife,
and a family,
in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham
and the promise to David.
And what does he discover?
His fiancé is pregnant.
This was not his dream in life.
Sometimes God's plan for your life is not perfect.
And usually
when this happens
we look at what's ahead
and we see a black hole.
We can get disappointed,
depressed,
or slip into denial.
And the Greek says
that Joseph was righteous
and he is not going to shame Mary.
Joseph has two choices at this point,
he can face reality
or he can live in his dreams.
A lot of people when faced with less than perfect situations,
cope with a fantasy.
I meet many people who have the idea
that if they imagine and envision
something the way they want it to happen
and if they start declaring that thing
it is going to happen.
And you see people who get short term results from this.
It's very dangerous,
because it can quickly slip into witchcraft,
control,
and manipulation
because you are not accepting reality.
God only works in reality.
He doesn't work in the realm of our wants.
God doesn't give us grace for a fantasy.
Fortunately,
Joseph has a dream
and in the dream
he is visited by an angel of the Lord.
And the Angel says to him,
do not be afraid
this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
And then the angel continues:
And you shall call his name Jesus
for he will save his people from his sins.
And here is an interesting bit.
In Luke's gospel,
it is clear that the angel spoke to Mary in Greek,
because there is a unique word in Mary's conversation with Gabriel
that could only have happened in the Greek.
In Matthew,
the Angel in the dream
was speaking to Joseph in Aramaic.
Because when you translate this phrase
into Aramaic
you get a pun.
You shall call his name Salvation
because he will save his people from his sins.
Y'shua
means salvation.
Joseph has a dream with an angel
and this angel has a simple message.
It's not about you Joseph.
This is about the hope of your nation,
about the promise of God to your family,
about the future of planet earth.
Are you going to surrender to God?
Whenever we surrender,
we accept reality.
This is accepting life on life's terms.
And Joseph wakes up
and he chooses to obey the Lord
and take Mary for his wife.
And Mary is the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah
behold,
a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son
and you shall call his name Emmanuel
God with us.
The Incarnation is everything.
Jesus Christ did not come to us
to make things the way they "ought to be."
Jesus came into the situation
and embraced reality.
God can only heal and transform
reality
not your imagination of reality.
This is why confession,
forgiveness,
and reconciliation are so important.
When something goes wrong
you have to come to Jesus
and the cross
and look at what you did
and say,
"What I did is out of line with God's reality.
I confess
that your reality,
Jesus, is true,
and mine is not."
And I have to give it to him
and receive his forgiveness.
And when you have a conflict with another person,
you have to tell the truth,
admit you are wrong,
admit it is not all about you,
and you have to say I am sorry,
and that person has to say,
"I accept your apology and I forgive you."
If you don't
(And a lot of people think the Christian thing is to say
"oh that's okay, don't worry about it.")
there is no grace.
Grace only flows through truth and reality,
not how you hope reality will be.
Grace only flows through truth and reality.
The past month has been insane.
I think we squeezed a year into four weeks.
A few days before Thanksgiving
I was shown a house that we could use as our international headquarters.
It really is perfect,
but
the owners are into "word faith" theology,
that if you declare things
the way you want them
it will happen.
In the end,
I had to walk away
because their prayers,
based in a fantasy
and unrealistic expectations
were causing problems for our ministry.
I knew we had a word from the Lord about this house
and so I was confident I could walk away.
If you have a real word
you can act without fear
and trust God.
That is real.
This is what faith looks like.
Faith is always a risk,
but if you have a word from the Lord,
you are grounded in reality.
This is why when we make scriptural declarations
we see so much happen in people's lives.
When we declare scriptural truth,
even if that truth is not yet reality for us,
we begin to see movement
from our broken reality
into God's reality.
The incarnation is everything.
Jesus came into a broken world
and said
I am salvation
I am God with you.
I am close
and I can bring the life and love of God
into your broken reality
and bring salvation.
That word salvation
means healing, wholeness, shalom,
transformation and blessing.
And so we declare salvation over situations.
Last November, the day before I went to see the house in New Hampshire,
I went and did a pastoral visit
for a friend
whose mother was dying of cancer.
Unbeknownst to me,
she was told her situation was hopeless
and that she should give up.
It was probably good that I didn't know the prognosis.
I went in to see her
and prayed a simple prayer.
First we walked through our three step process of forgiveness,
I asked her to forgive anyone who hurt her,
forgive herself for any sinful reactions she had to others,
forgive God for any disappointments,
and to let go of any anger.
We acknowledged and accepted reality.
When we do this the life of God can flow.
Then I placed my hand on her
and I prayed.
When I prayed,
I saw our Lord Jesus put his hand on mine,
and the light and love of God
began to flow into her body.
And then Jesus looked up at me with a smile
and he said,
"She is going to be okay."
And I told the woman,
"You are going to be okay."
This was reality.
Do not be afraid.
Well there were a few bumps along the road,
and we stopped in the Daily Prayer Furnace to pray for her
twice I believe.
But we had a word from the Lord, she was going to be okay.
And then her tumors began to visibly vanish.
This week the doctor who told her a month ago
she was going to die,
greeted her with the words "Alleluia."
She is going to be okay.
She still has some more treatments
but it looks like things are going well.
This is faith.
Joseph had a word from the Lord.
And he acted in faith.
Inside
I know he was conflicted,
and probably disappointed.
His first born,
his heir,
was not his.
He knew it was not about him.
But he had a word from the Lord,
and he chose to believe
and he named the Baby salvation.
Salvation comes when we surrender.
Three weeks ago,
I walked away from the house
and trusted God.
Yesterday,
the owners of the house reached out to me,
and they want to talk.
Faith comes by hearing
and hearing comes by the real
living word of God,
not a verse you found that makes you happy,
not your desires,
not your hopes,
not your wants,
but the real word.
Things may not be perfect,
but aligning your reality with God's
is going to open the door
for Salvation.
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