Opening Doors Fearlessly

I’m not a big fan of scary movies, but this week the stores were filled with Halloween stuff, so maybe that’s why I’m thinking about them. And even if you’re not a fan of scary movies, I’ll bet you’ve seen the scene that’s been written into many of them. It starts with a shot of someone sitting at home alone on a dark and stormy night. Then, all of a sudden this person hears a “bump” from upstairs…the same upstairs that’s supposed to be empty. So they get up from their chair, and head to the foot of the stairs. Then, at that point the camera angle switches so that you and I see what they see as they tiptoe up the stairs and creep toward the door to the room where that bump in the night came from When they get there, we see their shaking, trembling hand slowly reach out to open the door… I think that’s the moment when the person in the row in front of you at the movie theater yells out “Don’t go in there!” and you jump out of your seat and spill your popcorn all over your lap. You know that scene, don’t you?

We’re familiar with this kind of thing…the tension…the feelings of trepidation that fill us as we follow the character up the stairs…the fear that we can feel as they reach out with that trembling hand to open the door…we know this well…but I’m not sure that Jesus does.
I’ll bet that when Jesus arrived at the temple in Matthew 21:23-32 that there wasn’t an ounce of fear in him. Picture him, walking across town, down the street to the temple, up the front steps, and making his way to the entrance. How did he open the door when he got there? Do you picture him tiptoeing up the stairs? Do you envision him creeping toward the door? Do you see his hand trembling, shaking in fear as he reaches out to open it and enter? I don’t. In fact, when I read this story, I can’t picture Jesus approaching anything that way.

If you skip back to verse 12, you’ll find, I think, a very different picture of Jesus’ entrance that day:

“Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Matthew 21:12-13)

Turning tables, driving people out, making bold proclamations? This doesn’t sound like someone who opened the door to the temple that day with fear and trepidation. Instead, I think Jesus opened the door that day with purpose, with confidence…when it comes down to it…I think he opened it…FEARLESSLY.

In fact, if you read Jesus’ story, I think you’ll find that he opens most doors without fear. He opened the door to a fishermen’s heart and asked him to follow…without fear of rejection. He opened the door to the room where that same fisherman’s mother-in-law suffered with a terrible fever…without fear of catching what she had. He opened the door to his friend Lazarus’ tomb…without fear of the smell of death that was inside it. Jesus opens lots of doors, and he opens them all fearlessly.

He invites you to do the same thing…with doors that lead to new possibilities…with doors that have been bolted shut for too long…with doors that prevent you from living life in all of the abundance that God intended...Jesus invites you to do it with every door you face.
We’re invited to open doors fearlessly because that’s what Jesus himself does. I think he must get that from his Father.

God isn’t afraid of opening new doors. God isn’t afraid to open the door that leads from heaven to earth and send his only Son down to live with us. God isn’t afraid to open the door of the tomb that holds His Son’s lifeless body. God certainly isn’t afraid to open the door to your heart, and invite you to follow His way.

How did Jesus open the door to the temple that day? Timidly? Fearfully? With uncertainty? I’ll bet not! He opened it fearlessly and walked right in. Even though he knew there were challenges waiting for him on the other side of it.

The people Jesus meets in the temple that day aren’t very good at opening doors…fearlessly or otherwise. In fact, maybe because of their fear they prefer to close doors and keep them shut. We might not be all that different. When you see a door in front of you that may hold a new, but scary opportunity behind it…what do you do? When you pass by the doors that have been slammed on relationships, and hold nothing but old wounds and grudges behind them…what do you do? When you stand before the door that leads to new life…how do you stand? Do you tiptoe past them? Do you creep by them? Do you stand and tremble with fear…debating whether or not to open them?

I think Jesus is always inviting us, but never forcing us, to open these doors in our lives and know that because he’s with us that we can open them FEARLESSLY!

God opened the door from heaven to earth and Jesus walked through it…on the other side he saw some pretty scary things…he saw people using God’s name to get rich…he saw people struggling to eat with no one to help them…he saw people dying alone because people were afraid to reach out and touch them…in the end he saw possibly the scariest thing of all…a wooden cross with his name on it! He saw it all, and yet he never crept, he never trembled, he never gave in to any fear he may have had. In the end, I think Jesus goes to the cross because his love for us is so strong that it far outweighs any fear he feels.

There is one exception to this, though. On the evening when Jesus was raised from the dead, we’re told that his disciples were gathered in a house and they had locked the doors because they were afraid. These may be the only doors that Jesus doesn’t open. Mysteriously, he simply appears in the house. The doors remain locked as he stands among his disciples, shows them the marks of the nails in his hands and offers them his peace. He doesn’t open the door when he comes to show his disciples that he’s alive and well…He appears, and then he leaves that last part up to them…to let go of everything that scares them, and fearlessly open the door to step into the life that God has in store for them. We know they did it because we wouldn ‘t be here otherwise. Will you do the same?

Receiving God's Grace

When the alarm clock goes off on a Monday morning, what’s the first thought that typically comes to your mind?

If you’re like me, then that thought, most Mondays just might begin with the word “Ugh!” “Another Monday.” Have you ever felt that way? If you have, then you know it’s even worse when you wake up on Monday and it’s dark and grey outside, and the sky is cloudy, and the air is cold. On a day like that it’s enough to want to just stay in bed, pull back the covers, and hide from the world. Have you been there before? Me too.

Now, shift gears for a moment and think back the last day you can remember when you woke up, and the first thoughts in your mind, the first thing you said to yourself was “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Maybe the sun was shining in through the window, the birds were chirping outside, the sky was blue…maybe you’re like a friend of mine, and your automatic coffee maker had dutifully made the coffee and you can already smell it wafting in from the kitchen…and all you can think in the middle of that perfect scene is “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Wouldn’t it be nice if every day could begin that way?
Well, if you think so, then I’d like to let you in on a secret…ANY day CAN be a great day. It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue or grey, if the sun is shining or buried behind a thick wall of clouds, if the birds are chirping sweetly or there are a flock of crows cawing wildly…any day can be a great day.

Too often, I know I’m guilty of it, when the day doesn’t start the way we wanted, when the air’s too cold, the sky is too grey…you forgot to plug the coffee maker in the night before…we didn’t get enough sleep…when all these things collide to make us wake up on the wrong side of the bed…too often the first thoughts we think or the first words we say…fall into the category of complaints. Before we’ve even pulled back the covers, we’re complaining…
We all complain, some more than others..but when complaining becomes a daily habit…an every morning routine…then pretty soon the things that can ruin a day become smaller and smaller…and it doesn’t take long before the words “Man, today’s going to be a great day” disappear from our vocabulary altogether…THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN…Like I said…any day has the potential for being a great one.

Think about the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 20:1-16. There is a group of people in that story for whom the day is starting to show signs of going south. I’m talking about that 5 pm group who are still standing around.

They may have rolled out of bed saying “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” but then when the clock struck 9, noon, 3, and 5 and they were still standing around, un-hired, they may have begun question their initial assessment…the reason this is turning out to be a bad day is because they know that if they don’t get picked, they don’t work, and if they don’t work, then their family doesn’t eat that day.

Have you ever felt like that? Like a day that had so much potential just sort of ran out of steam? Or took a wrong turn somewhere? Or came to a screeching halt altogether? What did you do when that happened? What are the things you started to think? What did you say? What did you do about it?

The interesting thing to me, about the 5 o’clock group is their strategy. They don’t start complaining: “What a rotten day!” or “How come he got picked over me? Everyone knows I always work hard and he’s a slacker!” Instead of letting the grey clouds get the better of them, instead they seem to say “Let’s wait and see! The day’s not over yet.” At the end of the day, for them it was worth it…they finally get picked, and they receive far more than they ever expected. I’ll bet when the checks were handed out at the end of the day…that 5 o’clock group looked at them and said “Man, I KNEW today was going to be a great day!”

There is word for what those workers received, and it is the key to the secret of every great day…the word is GRACE. Being paid for a full day’s work, when you only showed up at 5 is GRACE…it means the difference between food on the table or empty stomachs. GRACE is the key to our lives, too because it means the difference between whether a day is rotten or good.
The complainers in Jesus story grumble because they worked all day and got the same thing as the ones who showed up late. My guess is, most of us might do the same thing if we found ourselves in their shoes. I think they complain…and most of the time we do too…because we have a hard time recognizing GRACE. Jesus’ story reminds us that GRACE is all around us…it’s as available to you the moment you wake up, before the day has even started, as it is late in the day when you’re exhausted and ready for bed.

The question is, is it ENOUGH for you? Is what God provides enough…or do you find yourself worrying about what others have? Is what God provides enough for today or do you find yourself fearful of what tomorrow might bring? When you look at what God has given you, do you find yourself complaining about what you’re receiving…or not receiving?

Many of you probably know who Randy Pausch is…he’s the Carnegie Mellon Professor, who at the age of 47 was diagnosed with a terminal pancreatic cancer that this past summer took his life. For Randy, that one day at the doctor’s office changed his life forever. With a wife and three small children, no one would blame Randy if he complained…if he said that this wasn’t fair…if he cried out that he didn’t deserve what he had received in this diagnosis. In his book, “The Last Lecture” he says something profound about complaining. He says this: “Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy.” I would agree with him.

Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy…but I believe that Receiving God’s Grace does. When you don’t receive what you had hoped out of a day, a week, or a life…complaining won’t change any bit of it. God’s Grace might.

Take Jesus for example. We’re told that on one particular Thursday night, he had a nice meal with all of his friends, but that later on he wound up spending the rest of that night in a jail cell. Then, Friday morning he woke up and stood trial. He listened as large crowds of people called not for his release, but for his life. Then at noon on Friday he trudged up a hill with the cross on his shoulders…and that afternoon he felt the nails in his hands…then that night, he died.

As far as I know, he never complained about any bit of it. But he did say things like: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Even when the day showed no signs of improving, and only got worse as the hours went by, Jesus spent every minute of it still trusting, hoping, and counting on somehow receiving God’s grace. No matter how you look at it, that Friday for Jesus was not a “good” day.

But then, something happened…something no one could have foreseen or predicted. If you think that the 5 o’clock workers were surprised that day when the checks were handed out, then imagine how surprised Jesus was when Sunday morning rolled around, and he opened his eyes, breathed in and looked around, and saw that the sun outside his tomb was shining and the door was opened. My guess is, he smiled, rolled out of that cold, dark tomb and said to himself “Man, today is going to be a great day!”

Jesus reminds us all that no matter what happens, whether it is morning, noon, or night, God’s grace is always there…sometimes we don’t see it right away, but if we hang around long enough it always shows up. Complaining, though we do it often, is never a strategy that will improve our day or our life…But, waiting on God’s grace just might!

Giving Unselfishly

If you wanted to read a really great work of literature, you could go to your local library and borrow: War and Peace, The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby, or countless others. But, as far as I’m concerned, there aren’t too many books that rival a classic from my childhood. “The Berenstain Bears: Trouble with Money” is without a doubt one of the greatest books you’ll ever read. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up, you’ll be glad you did. It’s a quick read, but what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in meaning.
The Berenstain Bears Trouble with Money is a portrait of a young bear family, and their struggles to teach their children about money. Brother Bear and Sister Bear have a problem with money, namely they have a hard time holding onto it. It burns holes in their pockets, they spend it frivolously, they have a hard time saving. For them, that’s the trouble with money, they can’t seem to spend it or get rid of it fast enough. Often, they spend it on the wrong things. The book is all about Mama and Papa Bear trying to teach their young cubs how to save money, how to value their money, and how to put some away for a rainy day. Again, if you have yet to read this classic of American literature, go out and pick up a copy. Ours is well-worn and well-read.

Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel (v. 21-35) contains a quick lesson, too, but it is also full of meaning. You could call this story “The Trouble with Forgiveness.” It all begins with a simple question from a sincere disciple. Peter asks Jesus: “Lord, how many times should I forgive?” Already, he’s recognizing that when it comes to forgiveness, he’s having trouble. Maybe his question is an effort to make this difficult concept somehow simpler: “Should I forgive seven times?”

Jesus’ words remind Peter, and you and I, that forgiveness doesn’t really work that way. His story is an illustration of the trouble we often have with forgiveness.

Whereas the Bears in the book have trouble holding onto their money, often you and I have trouble letting go of our forgiveness. Sometimes we guard it as if it were pricelessly irreplaceable. Sometimes, we treat it like money: we bank it, we save it, we hold onto it. Sometimes, we lock our forgiveness up in an air-tight vault with thick walls, that only we have the combination to. Sometimes, we don’t let forgiveness out enough.
The trouble with forgiveness, that Jesus communicates, is that you have to GIVE it for it to work. The king in the story that Jesus tells gives forgiveness, he forgives an outrageous debt…and the servant is relieved. But, he still has trouble with forgiveness, because just a few moments later…he can’t do the same thing for a miniscule debt. Because of this, he winds up in trouble. When we don’t give our forgiveness away, and instead keep it all to ourselves, then we wind up in trouble.

What he never realized, is that you can never “bounce” a forgiveness check. You can never deplete your “forgiveness” bank. In fact, it’s impossible to ever run out of forgiveness. Peter is probably more ambitious than you and I could be “Can I forgive up to seven times?” Jesus still says he’s being way too conservative with his forgiveness.

We’ll never run out of forgiveness because God has already given us more than we could ever imagine. God knows how to give out forgiveness.

When we owed God and one another big time, God handed himself over to cancel our debt. No matter what we owed, Jesus came to forgive it. Unselfishly, he gave all that he could to erase every debt. He gave us his time, his listening ear, his loving presence…in the end, he gave us his life. Jesus’ death cancels our debt…forgives us completely. His new life, in rising again, helps us to get on a brand new payment plan…one that runs on love and forgiveness.

Because of all this, you will never “bounce” a forgiveness check, so write them often, and make sure they’re in large amounts.

Our Vision at Zion is for GROWING and the first challenge we’ve set to help ourselves grow is the commitment to GIVING UNSELFISHLY. I can think of few things more challenging to give unselfishly than forgiveness, but if we are really interested in GROWING in our faith, then this a good place to begin…by giving forgiveness unselfishly.

When you and I forgive from the heart, we grow! We grow closer to one another, and we grow closer to God. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in his last words to Peter that God is really interested in our trouble with forgiveness, and God is concerned with helping us overcome it.

When you think about your own trouble with forgiveness, who comes to mind? Who might benefit this week, if you decided to crack open your forgiveness vault and give some of it away? Who might you know who needs for you to open up your forgiveness checkbook and write one great big check? Who is that person whose whole life might change, all because you trusted God enough to confront your own trouble with forgiveness and give some of it away?

Forgiveness isn’t like money…it’s not something we should save up and bank throughout our lives. Instead it’s something God wants us to spend frivolously, generously, unselfishly…every day. He did it for you and it made your troubles easier to bear…you can do it for someone else and do the exact same thing.