9 Sermons Worth Preaching from Matthew 1 (5 of which stem from the geneology)

• God's covenant with Abraham
• God's covenant with David
• God associates with the marginalized (women in the geneology)
• Good kings and Bad kings
• Zerubabbel: God restores broken relationships
• The virgin birth
• Love and Justice: A study of Joseph
• Jesus saves from sins
• God is with us

Nice Guys Don't Always Finish Last But They Often Fall Down the Stairs

It was a dark and stormy morning...

Well, it wasn't really stormy, but it was dark. Emma and I were sneaking around the house as quietly as possible trying to get ready for school/work while everyone else in the house (little brother, inlaws, outlaws, etc.) slept in. In the course of our preparations, I noticed that the towels had really stacked up in the bathroom, so I grabbed them and made a pile in the hallway at the base of the steps. This way, I would remember to throw them in the washer when I got home that afternoon.

Just as we were about to successfully leave the house without making so much as a peep, I remembered a book I needed to bring with me. I deftly climbed the stairs to our bedroom, grabbed the book off my desk, and lightly descended the hardwood stairs all silently as I had yet to shoe myself.

Then...

One step from the bottom, I stepped on the corner of a towel which had made its way onto the step. Did I mention our steps are hardwood?

The towel slipped right off the step... and my foot went with it. Of course, where my foot goes, my leg goes and the rest of me follows. A late grasp for the handrail to steady myself was ineffective, largely because I missed the handrail. Having grabbed nothing but air, instead of steadying me, my outstretched arm crashed down to the stairs elbow first. It was followed by the back of my head which barely proceeded the landing of the rest of my body. At that point I gracefully? thumped down the two or three stairs between me and the first floor and ended up in a dazed heap at the bottom of the floor.

The pain and confusion I sensed at that moment was quickly erased by the joy of realizing that Emma, who had witnessed the entire thing, was standing in front of me with a look of horror and deep concern. All bad feelings melted away in the warmth of knowing that my firstborn daughter cared deeply for me and was worried about my welfare. She asked, "Are you okay?" Before I even had a chance to respond and remind her just how tough her dad was, she finished her question, "Are you going to be able to drive me to school?"

Sigh.

Of course, our hopes of escaping the house without anyone waking up were now dashed. One startled person yelled out, "Is everyone okay?" I mumbled something about "I dropped something" (which indeed I had) as we headed out the door.

But here's the story behind the story. I had great intentions that morning. I wanted to let everyone have some extra sleep time. I wanted to help out with the laundry. I wanted to get my daughter to school on time. I can honestly say, for the most part I was really focused on others that morning. I was really being a "good" guy. I really had the absolute best motivations for everything I did.

My elbow still hurts... a lot.

See, the best intentions in the world don't always translate into reality. Things happen, and often our intentions end up having ZERO effect on our actions. I intended to let everyone sleep in. No one got to, because I slipped up. I intended to put the towels in the wash for Marianne. I ended up not doing it. I intended to safely go down those stairs.

Our intentions often have very little to do with our reality.

That's why God doesn't judge us on our intentions. He judges us on the reality of our actions. All of us intend to do good. None of us do it. That's why Jesus had to come and do good for us. He is the only person ever whose life perfectly matched his intentions. But even He struggled with it. His intention from the moment He left the Father's side was to save us from our sins, but in the garden as the cross loomed, he wrestled with the heavy burden of reality that sat on the shoulders of his intentions. Unlike me, though, he came through.

Good Friday: Bariatric Surgery, Government Bailouts, and the Pro-Choice Movement...

Yesterday, we were driving back from a gymnastics area on the East side of the state. Somewhere along I-96 I noticed a billboard picturing several balloons floating into the sky, each with a different number on it. I can't remember the exact slogan, but the idea was "You can take off a bunch of weight RIGHT NOW!" It was an advertisement for one of the "miracle" weight loss surgeries that are now available at the Operating Room nearest you.

Frankly, the whole idea is disturbing to me.

I need to be careful here because I don't want to needlessly offend someone, so up front I'll say that I know weight issues are different for every person. There are many people who valiantly battle their gene pool for their entire life but never find their way to the weight goal they'd like. I also will acknowledge that I'm not necessarily in the best shape of my life. It wouldn't hurt me to shed a few pounds. But that's kind of the point I'm working toward. I'm fully aware of what happened to my once fit figure. Over time, I worked out too little, sat around too much, and ate the wrong kind of foods too many times. It's been fun, but it's cost me.

Here's what else I know. I can get back to where I was. However, I didn't get here overnight and I won't be able to get back to where I was overnight either. The amount of time it took me to do this to my body will likely be required to undo it. Perhaps it will take even longer, and the sad truth is that it will require more discipline, harder work, and increased pain. But...that's what we call consequences! I'm disturbed by the idea that we're selling surgical procedures designed to simply bypass the consequences of an undisciplined, sedentary life (see, here's where I again note that I'm not talking about EVERYONE, but let's be honest, I'm talking about a lot of people... you know who you are, Muskegon!). The reality is that a high percentage of people will have a surgical procedure that allows them to bypass the hard work and discipline required to get back in shape, and having not gained those skills they will repeat the same behavior that got them there in the first place.

A similar "consequence-less" approach seems to be all the rage in the financial sector of our country. From the government bailout money given to those with faulty business models and decision-making processes to the easy personal bankruptcies of those who ran up bills they couldn't pay; it seems that living the high life without paying for it, has become the functional modus operandi of our culture. It's really the same as the weight loss billboard, "feel free to abandon all discipline and run up ridiculous debt levels. you won't really have to ever pay for it!"

Can I suggest the exact same principle lies behind the abortion debate in our country? "Right to choose" is really just a right to choose to not have consequences. (As with weight-issues and debt, not every case is the same, but generally what I'm saying here is true) Pregnancy can be avoided. Women (and their male counterparts) can choose to not be pregnant, and it really has nothing to do with abortion. It has to do with thinking ahead ans asking the question, "Am I willing to deal with the potential consequences of this decision?"

In fact, the same question could be asked before I eat a twinkie.
The same question could be asked before I use my credit card.
The same question could be asked before some wall-street yahoo makes a speculative leap.

"Am I willing to deal with the consequences of this decision?"

Sadly, this question (and the personal discipline it represents) has been rendered impotent by our consequence-free society. We can all eat what we want and grow as large as we want, because we can have an operation to remove the consequences. We can spend whatever we want and live WAAAAY beyond our means because we can just default and the government will remove our consequences. We can enjoy "knowing one another" as often as we like, because a doctor can easily execute the consequences.

As I said at the top, the whole idea is disturbing to me.

I'm particularly disturbed because I think this same attitude toward consequences has really misinformed people's attitude toward a dirty little word we call "sin". Sin is no longer thought of as that bad a thing, or is a word reserved only as descriptive of the REALLY bad things that only the REALLY bad people do. Since we no longer suffer consequences in much of our lives, the idea that violating God's will has severe consequences is kind of archaic and closed-minded.

But this time of year, I do a lot of thinking about the consequences of sin. Because this week we'll celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus, an event Mel Gibson forced most of us to think a little differently about. It wasn't some heartening, dramatic event that inspires us to live life a little bit better. It was a pretty awful happening on a pretty awful day. For the most part, the reality of what happened that day is unspeakable.

That... is the consequence of sin. It's real, it's painful, and it's my fault. No surgery, no bailout, no "procedure" can remove the guilt of what I've done to God's creation, and more specifically to God's Son.

More later.