Category Archives: Faith and Practice

One Thing

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“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
1 Corinthians 2:2

Some days it is really hard to focus. We live in a very distracting world.

This is not altogether a bad thing. We can get distracted by wonder and beauty, and those are God’s blessings. I have a beautiful view of a crabapple tree out my office window, a home to robins and turtledoves, shelter for squirrels and rabbits alike. I can lose track of time taking in this beauty. I have a playlist of podcasts to which I want to listen, all edifying Biblical teaching that will do my soul good. These are wonderful things, but they can suck up my time, my attention, and keep me from what needs to be done.

There are, at the same time, many unhealthy distractions: games on the phone, YouTube channels that lead one to another, television shows that draw you in and make you want to binge the entire season.

There are so many voices clamoring for our attention today, it is so difficult to stay focused. I read an article which says that we’re actually re-wiring our brains with modern technology – with devastating effect. We’re accustomed now to a constant barrage of media input, but we never really absorb any of it. We’ve become well-informed idiots.

Even writing this article today, I’ve become acutely aware of how distracted I am. I’ve got so many things running through my mind, so many irons in the fire, so many conversations/texts I’m trying to maintain… so much to say that nothing was coming out. I sat staring at a blank page for 45 minutes. It’s not writers block, but rather the opposite. So much is running through the mind that I can’t even find a place to begin. I’ve started about 20 different posts, all to end up going nowhere, or morphing into something completely incoherent. Again, well-informed idiocy.

I know this isn’t what Paul was talking about when he wrote above verse in his letter to the Corinthians – maybe it was. The Corinthians were really taken in by the philosophers and orators of the day. They were impressed with impressive speakers, swayed by dazzling intellect. But Paul reminded them that when he was among them, he came not with great eloquence or intellect, but only knowing Jesus Christ and him crucified.

There were, and are, tremendous depths of theological profundity into which we may plunge ourselves as we grow in our knowledge and love of God. There are far reaching political, cultural, and even economic ramifications of our faith that must be explored. All of these things are worthy of pursuing, but none of them take precedence over the one thing: knowing Christ and him crucified.

Here’s thread of consciousness: Knowing Christ and him crucified: Christ, the 2nd person of the godhead, fully God, full of glory, wonder, power and majesty; one with God from all eternity; who, in accordance with God’s perfect and sovereign plan, did come to us, being born of a virgin, taking on the form of man though never ceasing to be God, fully God – fully man, he suffered in our place, lived in complete obedience to the Father, perfectly keeping His righteous law; but, in demonstrating the love of God, died upon the cross to take the full punishment of our sins, my sins, and was raised on the third day for the justification of all who put their faith in him.

Christ and Him crucified. Once I focus on this, all other things seem to lose their attraction. Dwelling on the beauty of who He is, the wonder of what He has done takes preeminence, drowns out all the lesser, insignificant, and trivial distractions.

Christ and Him crucified. It makes me want to delete a few apps. Makes me want to put my phone on “Do Not Disturb.” Makes me want to “be still and know.”

Christ and Him crucified. This is my one thing.

Is He yours?

Blessed are the Peacemakers…

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We are desperate for peace these days. We’ve come off a three month quarantine in which every news report sent shockwaves of COVID terror down our spines, only to be thrust headfirst into protests and riots and atrocities. We look to our political leaders, and all they do is blame each other. We look to entertainment to try to take our mind off of the chaos, only to find the same violence and godlessness of the headlines in our music, television, and movies.

We long for peace, at least the illusion of peace. We usually think that peace is simply the absence of conflict, and we’re okay with kicking the can of our social/moral/political/cultural brokenness down the road, as long as things settle down for now, and no harm comes to me or the ones I know and love.

Genuine peace – what in the Old Testament is called “Shalom” – means a wholeness of being, to be complete. We don’t have peace because we are broken, as individuals, as a society, as the human race. Sin has left us marred, damaged, corrupted, broken, and ultimately without peace. We search and search for anything to make us whole – pleasure, power, etc. – but as we can see if we open our eyes, the things of this world cannot give us the peace we are longing for.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9

We long for peace, and we remember that Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, describes the character of those who would follow after him. The Beatitudes, those signifiers of what it looks like to be truly blessed include things like being poor in spirit, mourning, humility, and yes, being peacemakers. These are not natural characteristics that we have to manifest in order to become followers of Christ, but are rather the “super-natural,” spiritual qualities that those who follow Christ will ultimately demonstrate because of the transforming work if the Holy Spirit in us.

So how do we make peace? Let me suggest two ways we don’t make genuine peace, then point us to how peace is actually made.

We do not make peace through aggression. I am grateful for our military, those who defend and keep the peace for our nation, serving at home and around the world. I appreciate those who have fought in War, putting themselves in harms way to defend our freedom and liberty. I honor those in law enforcement who keep our communities safe. But we must remember, these serve as keepers of the peace, they cannot make it. Peace cannot be achieved through the show of force. This is the deterrence of war, or even the enforcement of justice, but it is not peacemaking.

I’ve seen first hand where peace is imposed by military strength. When visiting 3rd world countries, you see UN Peacekeepers, or heavily armed state security, quelling violence through the presence of strength. But when the peacekeepers aren’t looking – there is murder, violence, and rioting. Peace is not made through fear, aggression, or threat of violence.

Neither is peace made through appeasement and compromise. “Go along to get along” has become the modus-operandi today. We would do anything to avoid conflict. We bend the rules to avoiding offending the rule-breakers, and then wonder why no one obeys the rules any more. We see someone caught in what we know to be a destructive series of choices, but we refuse to say anything because we don’t want to seem judgmental. We would rather watch someone die then tell them they they are killing themselves. Who am I to say anything?

Think of Neville Chamberlain, England’s prime minister during the rise of Hitler’s Germany. He went to Hitler and promised not to enter the war, declaring “peace in our time,” only to betray England’s allies and to later be betrayed and attacked themselves. Peace cannot be achieved through cowardice or moral-relativism.

If we want to be peacemakers, we must first consider how Christ secured peace for us. We are reminded throughout scripture that sin has created enmity between God and man, that there is a divide, a hostility between us that must be reconciled (Eph 2:1-5; Rom 1:18-25, 8:5-7; 1 John 2:15-17). And this is why Jesus came. God, in His love, sent Jesus His Son, to die in our place, to take the full weight of wrath and judgment, the penalty for our sins, upon Himself (Rom 5:8, 1 Peter 2:24, John 3:26). He died to take away the hostility between us and God, becoming the curse of our sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (Gal 3:13, 2 cor 5:21). It is through Jesus’ sacrifice that we have peace; peace with God and with one another.

If we are to become peacemakers, we first do so by proclaiming the peace that Christ has made. There is no other mediator between God and man, no other name given among man by which to be saved (Acts 4:12). There is no other peace, no other hope (Rom 5:1). If we are to be peacemakers, we must become heralds of the peace of Christ. We make peace by proclaiming the grace and mercy of God in Jesus to those who do not know Him, those who have not known His peace.

We are peacemakers when we living in peace with one another, forgiving and being forgiven. There is not one of us who has not sinned against his brother or sister, not one of us who is above reproach. There are no classes or groups of people who have been so victimized as to be beyond rebuke, nor so saintlike that repentance is not necessary. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). If we are to be peacemakers, we must begin by confessing our sin to God, then confessing our sin to one another, knowing that Christ has broken down every wall of hostility that divides us, making peace through His blood. Christ is our peace with God, and our peace with one another. Seek forgiveness, and be willing to forgive, just as God has forgiven you in Christ Jesus the Lord.

Finally, we remember that we become peacemakers through sacrifice. We are called, not to take up arms, but to take up our cross (Matt 16:24). We lay down our lives for the sake of following Christ, and in doing so, we find the peace we are longing for, and become peacemakers. We sacrifice, die to ourselves, not insisting on our rights or privileges, but caring for and seeing to the needs of those around us. These sacrifices are not meritorious, they do not bring about peace, but they do proclaim the peace that has been made in Jesus.

May we, through the grace of God in Jesus Christ, be known as peacemakers.