FaithWorking radio – Love Is Kind – part 1 (1Cor 13.4)

Kind is a small word with a big, biblical meaning. God’s kindness is that quality of his love that caused the God who did not need us to create us and then bind himself to us, first in creation and then supremely in redemption. In the kindness of his love, God has declared quite literally that he does not want to be blessed and joyous apart from us. God calls us, as his children, to display the same quality in our love for one another. I hope you enjoy the radio show. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow

The following sources were used in this post:

Fox News

Catholic Online

Franciscan University website

US News & World Report college rankings

Wikipedia

* January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations.

* February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011.

* March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

* April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University [a Roman Catholic institution], Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech.

* April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three.

* May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan.

* April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community.

* February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

* April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.

* August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception.

* August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America).

* September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

* September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”

* February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read.

You can read Barton’s full article here.

]]> http://www.faithworking.com/2012/05/15/obama-called-most-biblically-hostile-u-s-president/feed/ 2 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://www.faithworking.com/2012/05/14/what-are-you-giving-your-life-to-mat-6-19-23/ http://www.faithworking.com/2012/05/14/what-are-you-giving-your-life-to-mat-6-19-23/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 04:11:03 +0000 Alan Burrow http://www.faithworking.com/?p=1697

Podcast intro

According to financial experts, most people don’t invest. But according to Jesus, everyone invests. They may not invest money, but everyone invests their life in something. That something will always be whatever they believe holds forth the best promise for meaning, happiness, and fulfillment. And their passion will follow their investment. That’s where their focus will be. That’s what they will serve. And that’s what will shape them and their life. While the different ways to invest one’s life in pursuit of happiness and fulfillment would seem to be endless, Jesus tells us that they all fall into two categories. Either we are investing our lives in keeping with the values, loves, and loyalties of this fallen world, or we are investing our lives in keeping with the values, loves, and loyalties of the kingdom of heaven, which through Christ has broken into this fallen world and is destined to transform it. Every investment is measured by two qualities – security and rate of return. Jesus assures us that, no matter what the appearances may be at any given time and place, investing our lives according to the values, loves, and loyalties of the kingdom of heaven is hands down the best investment one can ever make. I hope you enjoy the sermon. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow

This beautiful prayer was offered by Casey Christopher during worship today:

Great God Almighty and Father in Heaven,

We bring our hearts, our lives, our families, our songs, and our worship here before You today, asking You to receive it all joyfully in the name of Your perfect Son, Jesus Christ.

LORD, You have shown us how the great stories can go all tangled and, for a season, Your purposes are upended.  Heroes will lose their way, heroines are tempted by villains, and the dragon takes over the land.  Sometimes Israel becomes Egypt, sending parents with their children into strange lands to escape their own governors.  Sometimes Jerusalem becomes Babylon, and she begins to devour her own. 

Heavenly Father, we long to sit at Your feet and learn to hear and understand the Story properly.  We want to know Your ways, Your paths, and Your people so well that imposters would be quickly seen and met.  We would be like the men of Berea, who – when they heard a new teaching – searched the Scriptures daily to find out what was true.  But our times are strange and twisted, and our earthly prophets and kings speak lies like honey, without conscience.  They babel nonsense with great conviction, panache, and flair.  And they speak the truth only as it profits them. 

Heavenly Father, it may be that we, also, as Your Church, have wandered far from home, like the prodigal son, and have become so full of the sound and slop of pigs that we can hardly remember the Story properly.  We are tempted to forget even who we are.  How can we remember You, great Father, when we do not act like sons?  Have we loved Your blessings, but hated You?  Have we spent far more than we were given?  Have we made peace with our squalor, and decided that living like pigs isn’t half bad, in it’s own way?

Call us home, LORD.  Raise us from our stupor.  Heal us from out dementia.  Redeem us from our madness.  Draw us toward home, and rescue us.  Bring us to Yourself.  Tell us the Story again, about men who protect the realm, about women strong and wise and faithful, about children who run and play and laugh all the way down to their toes.  Tell us the Story again, about fearless young warriors who kill mocking giants, about faithful prophets who call down fire and drive away the throngs of idolaters, and about simple men and women who pursue Love like it was the one thing that mattered.  Call us home, LORD, and teach us once again how to live out Your Story in the small, and largely unnoticed spaces of our lives and our fellowship.

LORD, You have become our Father by adopting us as Your children, that we would grow into a Kingdom of sons, ruling wisely, and doing only that which we see our Father doing before us.  We can do none of this on our own.  So we ask You to do it in us and through us, by Your Holy Spirit, because of Your only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ.  And Amen.

God, the greatest example.

What love does not do (rehearse wrongs), God did not do, and that is how he saved us. And when we remember that “God is love” (1John 4.16), we realize that what God did for us in Christ is an outworking of who God is. God is not a God who keeps adding up and rehearsing our offenses against him. And this gives us insight into what it means, and what it does not mean, for us to love and to forgive.

— It does not mean failing to recognize sin as sin.

God knows all our sins. He has a complete, accurate accounting. But God did not rehearse our offenses again and again. With an eternal being, when would that process stop? It wouldn’t. Had God repeatedly rehearsed our sins, he would never have looked beyond our sins to salvation. Our sins were great, but there was a greater reality – the grace of God: “[W]here sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 5.20-21.)

Notice the connection between rehearsing and accuracy. God’s assessment of our offenses is 100% accurate, and he does not rehearse them. We rehearse others’ offenses, and we have a very inaccurate assessment of them. As rehearsing goes up, accuracy goes down. As rehearsing goes down, accuracy goes up. So not rehearsing offenses is part of having an accurate assessment of offenses. And, paradoxically, having an accurate assessment of offenses is part of not rehearsing them. You either have both, or you have neither.

— It does not mean thinking sin is no big deal.

Sin is a big deal to God. It required the death of his Son. So we have another paradox: taking sin seriously goes along with not rehearsing it. That means, as strange as it may sound, that rehearsing others’ offenses goes along with not taking sin seriously. How can one who rehearses sins be said to not take sin seriously? Because they don’t take it seriously as sin. Rehearsing sins means we take the offense against us more seriously than we do the offense against God. In other words, rehearsing offenses means we take ourselves seriously.

It is shocking to realize that we take ourselves seriously in a way that God does not take himself seriously. There is a sense – and I say this reverently – in which God takes himself less seriously than we take ourselves. Is this not the root of all our sin? Is it not the very face of pride? Stated with utmost reverence and awe – God took our sin seriously but he did not take himself seriously, at least not in the way we do. And in this way God loved us and sent his Son to die for our sin. Isn’t that what Paul is getting at in Philippians?

Christ Jesus . . . although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be clutched, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  (Phil 2.5-8.)

— It means doing what God did and refusing to do what he didn’t.

We worry about saving face, but God didn’t. We worry about our rights and our dignity, but God didn’t. The very thing in us that makes us so easily offended and so easily preoccupied with past offenses is the very thing that makes us sinners to start with. When the Bible tells us not to be that way (Phil 2.5), it is not telling us to suck it up; it is telling us to turn from that which is killing us.

The stop-offenses-by-being-offended approach – the stop-wounds-by-being-wounded approach –  is doomed to failure. Rather, we should say it is doomed to more failure, for it has been tried for time immemorial without success. The only thing that has succeeded has been Christ on the cross, and there God took the opposite approach. So must we.

“Woe to the world because of offenses!,” said Jesus. “For offenses must come, [and yet] woe to the one by whom the offense comes!”  (Mat 18.7.) It is not possible in this world to guard ourselves from offenses. The more we try, the more we become self-absorbed people who multiply the taking and giving of offense. For our concern for others is inversely proportional to our concern for ourselves. The only way forward is to emulate Christ. He gave no offense (no true offense). And that went hand in glove with the fact that he was not concerned to protect himself. He did not rehearse the offenses against him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23.34.) “He was wounded for our transgressions” (Isa 53.5), and yet he was not wounded. He was a victim (Isa 53.7), but he was not a victim. Had he been a victim, he would not have been a victim for us. (Isa 53.5.)

Let me close with a quote from my recent sermon on Mat 6.12, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”:

Jesus is not talking about forgiving others as a means of earning or qualifying for our own forgiveness. He is talking about being like the Father into whose family we have been adopted. (Mat 5.45, 48; Gal 4.4-6; 2Pet 1.4.) The head of this family is one who has gone to great lengths to forgive, even though he has never needed forgiveness. Thus while this is the family of those who have been forgiven (for all the children, save one, have been forgiven), it is even more fundamentally the family of those who forgive. Being forgiven does not make us like God; forgiving does. When we do not forgive others, we are saying we do not want to be like the Father, which is another way of saying we do not want to be part of his family.

President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.

Cardinal Dolan’s remarks were posted at usccb.org.

Podcast intro

This particular sermon is entitled, “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.” And as the name implies, it concerns Jesus’ final petition in the Lord’s Prayer. This petition is simple and straightforward, but if we are thinking at all, it gives rise to a number of questions concerning the nature and purpose of temptation. The complexity of the topic can be seen in the fact that the Greek word for “temptation” in the Lord’s Prayer is elsewhere rendered “trial” and “test.”

So, which is it – are they trials, tests, or temptations? Are they good or bad? Should we seek them or avoid them? And what is the source of trials, test, and temptations? Is it God, Satan, or our own desires? If they come from Satan or from our own sinful desires, is God sovereign over them? Does he use them for good in our lives? And what should be our attitude be toward trials, tests, and temptations? Should we be fearful or confident?

All these questions and more are implicated by Jesus’ simple petition, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” And so we see once again that Jesus is not simply giving us something to pray, he is putting the truth in our mouths. I hope you enjoy the sermon. Thanks for listening. –Alan Burrow

Discussion questions

1. In the sermon, Pastor Burrow said, “As Jesus shows us, being a perfect son does not consist in having no needs, but in perfectly looking to the Father to meet those needs.” Does this truth put living for God in a different light for you? How so? What changes will you make in your daily walk as a result?

2. Overcoming temptation and the evil one was something God expected of Adam (even before the fall) and of Jesus, the new Adam. And God tested Adam and Jesus in this regard (Rom 5.14, 17-18). One implication is that, while sin makes the process more difficult, overcoming temptation and the evil one are rooted in sonship – they are part of the process of sons growing up to be like their Father, the one who destroys evil (Isa 25.7-8; 1John 1.5). Does this truth put contending with temptation, evil, and the evil one in a different light for you? How so? Will this help you as you encounter temptations and trials? What will you do differently?

3. Read Gen 3.1-7. What do the serpent’s words tell us about how the evil one tempts us? What mistakes did Eve make that opened her to temptation? (You may also want to consider 1Tim 2.14.) What mistakes did Adam make that opened him to temptation?

4. Read Mat 4.1-11. What did Jesus do differently from Adam and Eve? What takeaways can we draw in terms of how we should deal with trials and temptations?

Podcast intro

This particular sermon is entitled “Forgive Us Our Debts,” and as the title suggests, it concerns the petition in the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus teaches us to ask the Father to “forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  If you are like me, that petition causes a cluster of questions to pop up in your mind.  And if it doesn’t, then Jesus’ commentary immediately after the Lord’s Prayer surely will.  For Jesus explains that if we do not forgive those who have trespassed against us, neither will the Father forgive us our trespasses against him (Mat 6.14-15).  Why does Jesus link our forgiveness to our forgiving of others?  Is forgiving others some sort of work by which we must earn our own forgiveness?  Is it some sort of ritual act we must do to qualify for forgiveness?  Is unforgiveness of others the unforgivable sin?  If not, isn’t it covered by the cross of Christ like other sins?  And while we are at it, why do we need to ask for forgiveness at all if we have already been forgiven in Christ?  Aren’t all our sins, past, present, and future, covered in Christ?  And why does Jesus refer to our sins as debts?  The answers to those questions are as surprising as they are profound.  To hear them, you will have to listen to the sermon.  I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks for listening.  –Alan Burrow

Discussion questions

1. In the sermon, Pastor Burrow said:

Jesus is not talking about forgiving others as a means of earning or qualifying for our own forgiveness. He is talking about being like the Father into whose family we have been adopted. (Mat 5.45, 48; Gal 4.4-6; 2Pet 1.4.) The head of this family is one who has gone to great lengths to forgive, even though he has never needed forgiveness. Thus while this is the family of those who have been forgiven (for all the children, save one, have been forgiven), it is even more fundamentally the family of those who forgive. Being forgiven does not make us like God; forgiving does. When we do not forgive others, we are saying we do not want to be like the Father, which is another way of saying we do not want to be part of his family.

Does this help you see forgiving others is a different light? How so? Does this make it easier for you to forgive? How so?

2. Paul says that as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, we are to clothe ourselves with special clothing. What are we supposed to clothe ourselves with? (Col 3.12.) If we wear these clothes, how will we behave toward one another? (Col 3.13.) Paul expands the concept of forgiving one another in two directions: (1) he expands forgiving to include “bearing with one another,” and (2) he expands what we forgive to include “complaint[s]” against one another. How do these two expansions affect your concept of forgiving in the local body of Christ? Based on Paul’s two expansions, does your self-evaluation of how forgiving you are go up or down? Going back to Paul’s list of attitudes we are to clothe ourselves with, how will each of these help us bear with those in the body we have complaints against? Do you think maybe we each need to re-evaluate our complaints? Do you think sometimes our complaints tell us more about ourselves than those we have complaints against?