European Pastors Conference Pt 2

The Patient Ferment of the Pastoral Soul

Intro

What a joy it is to be here with you this week.

It has been a genuine honor to be here. My soul has truly been refreshed (I know technically that should happen at the refresh conference in August)… but it’s true, this has been a true pleasure.

Sooo good to reconnect with you who I have known from sometime.

So great to meet you have I have not known and hear about all that God is doing.

I’m grateful for Gilberts survey of Ephesians. It’s been so rich to glean from his years of experience in ministry, in life, and to receive from his genuine care and concern for us as brothers and fellow ministers.

I’m grateful for the reminder that Gilbert gave us that God has established the unity that is in Christ, that is not something we can do. But he has invited us to maintain that unity. It’s the experience in serving Jesus that I hope to encourage you with today.

The title of my message is the Patient Ferment of the Pastoral Soul

I have found that as I walk through this life, in ministry, in loving and serving others (friends, family, church, neighbors) is that I experience hardship and difficulty. That is probably one of the universal things that we share in that transcends culture and geographical location. We all encounter difficulty but we all are recipients of God’s unmerited kindness and grace. Amen?

I hope to encourage us that as we experience this difficulty or hardship, in what the Bible can describe as walking in the valley of the shadow of death, that as we allow ourselves to be in the valley (not seeking to jump out as fast as we can) that it’s actually there that we are imitating Christ and Christ-likeness is formed in us.

There is difficulty that we create for ourselves and then there is difficulty that happens that is outside of our control. Both of these things were highlighted for me on Friday and Saturday…

On Wednesday of last week I looked at my itinerary for this trip and it struck me that my hotel stay was only one night instead of two coming into the conference. What a grace I thought, and I booked one more night.

When I landed in Munich on Friday I was quite tired and delirious. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane.

When I arrived I made my way to the hotel there at the Airport. Tired, delirious, and a bit of queazy stomach from having my sleeping and eating patterns upset… I got in line to check in. The computers were down so they gave us a free beverage in the restaurant while I (and the other guests waited)… the system got up and running and I got over there pretty quick as to avoid the rush.

The woman at the counter couldn’t find my reservation! I was so confused. I gave her the confirmation code and she found the reservation was for this Friday and Saturday (remember I had extended the reservation I found… I missed the date somehow).

I thought to myself, what am I going to do… I’m such a fool. I hope they have a room for me, Brian and the rest of the team are landing in a few hours… I started rehearsing my plea to Brian, “Hey, uh.. got some extra floor in that room of yours.”

By God’s goodness, they found me room… not only that but they put me on the top floor in an executive sweet for the same price as when I had originally booked the room months ago.

I made my way to the room… and wow… it was amazing. It had a bath tub that fit me, great view, access to the executive dining area… everything.

I took a bath after this long travel day and they laid down to take a nap.

Right then something hit me… wait, we were going to walk around Munich tomorrow… I vaguely remember being told to book a hotel in the city… OH NO!! I’M AT THE WRONG HOTEL!!

I go through my emails and notes and somehow my itinerary for the hotel didn’t make it onto my trip planner. I had already, months ago booked at the proper hotel, but now I just messed up my travel plans.

I pack up and race down to the lobby. I find the woman that helped me and told her I’m at the wrong hotel. But that I still need the date I previously had for the upcoming Friday for when I fly out. I thought, if I can get out of this dumb mistake I made with just having to pay for one night at not both, that would be a win in light of my foolishness.

She not only refunded me for both nights, but then rebooked my reservation for this Friday at the rate when I booked it a few months ago. I jumped the train and got to the right hotel to meet up with the team a little later.

They were none the wiser… until right now.

Along those situations that are done to you…

Saturday morning I awoke to a text thread with my family. It started out with my middle daughter talking about my youngest…

Molly said, “Can someone ground Stella?” … “She doesn’t know how the world works”

She’s a little dramatic.

Stella a month or so ago was what I’m finding is the universal games that siblings play on each other. My older brother did it to me and not ever having explained to my kids, my middle daughter did to my youngest daughter… ever play the game 52-card pickup?

Molly asked Stella, “Hey, do want to play 52-card pickup” and Stella wanting to play with her big sister said, “Sure!”… Molly through the playing cards in the air and then said, “Ok, pick them up” and walked off. It was classic.

Well on Friday night, Stella played her own version of the game and came into Molly’s room and through 52 cards all over her room, completely unannounced.

Being that it was a month ago, I’m not quite sure why she did it now… but as far as I can tell it was unprovoked.

A bit more serious… we’ve dealt with mental health issues that did deep emotional hurt to our staff. As one key staff member spiraled into a mental health crisis, we tried as a staff to help her, protect her, carry her through it… all the while being stabbed in the back until we couldn’t help anymore… being left hurt, wounded, and exhausted.

These types of things happen and it reminds that there are difficulties we encounter (big and small) that are sometimes consequences of our actions or there are difficult circumstances that are out of our control.

In both, I’ve found, as have you… that God takes those (big and small) and uses them to form us.

There is a pattern through out scripture that repeats itself… Ordering, Sin, Disorder, Reordering

I find this pattern in small and big ways in my life and ministry. I imagine this is a paradigm you could relate to in some ways.

It’s the pattern we see in Psalm 1

There’s a progression of the negative in vs. 1: walk/in-step with the wicked, stand/sinners, sit in the company of mockers

Like a tree, planted (growth over time)

Streams (water, health, Spirit… Eden imagery)

Yielding fruit in season (appropriate, as it matures)

Miracle element… spring it has leaves, summer it has leaves, fall it has leaves, winter it has leaves. That God will cause us to prosper through all the seasons of life.

But it speaks to a life that’s growing, someone who’s learning, someone who is seeking to root themselves in the Lord and in His word.

It is, in my opinion, a lot like wine. I don’t know a lot about wine making, but I do know that you harvest the grapes (that have been carefully cultivated), crush grapes processing them, and then there is a fermentation process to make it drinkable and desirable.

I want to share a few observations from Genesis 1-3 that I think established the pattern that we see throughout the Biblical story, that the Biblical authors draw upon throughout scripture.

Genesis 1

It starts out declaring what God has done, created the skies and the Earth.

I think it’s helpful to think through for a moment what someone hearing this as Moses wrote this down. That they look around and see the land and the skies above. Moses saying, in the beginning… God created all of this.

But (tension!) Genesis 1:2 “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

There is chaos. Life can’t exist. These words formless, empty, darkness, the deep… this is imagery that would have made us uncomfortable.

BUT … the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters! God is present in the chaos and in the darkness.

God then forms the visible cosmos in six days. Each day significant.

Humanity being the pen ultimate of creation (as Gilbert reminded us on the first day), God communicates to us the value and the worth that you and I have. We weren’t happenstance, we weren’t slaves to the Gods to be tortured, but we have value and created for relationship with God, each other, and have purpose to be fruitful and multiply, to tend and work the garden.

We all are born into a worldly context with competing narratives. The world, our current culture, would have us believe one thing (we are to consume and be consumed), but God would have us know the truth. We are loved, we are valued, that He desires a relationship with us and for us to have relationships with one another.

In fact, Moses in writing the creation account of Gen 1 and Gen 2 is at the same time countering the Babylonian and Egyptian cosmologies. We are not accidents, we are not the leftovers of the Gods, we were not born of violence and happenstance… but rather created through love, intentionality, and purpose.

Night and day… and then there was a day

On the seventh day, everything was created that was created. God ascended the throne and began to rule over creation.

Colossians 1:16–17 “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

By the seventh day He finished creating all that he did… that should speak to us there of the intentionality and patience of God. He doesn’t need seven days. There is deep significance with the number 7, but the intentionality of God to have inspired Moses to write all that He did speaks to God’s wisdom and brilliance.

It went from disorder… to order

This again is another example of the patient process of God.

This leads us to chapter 2 where we see the account of God forming man.

vs 5: no shrub or plant had yet sprung up (no rain)

vs 6: streams came up and watered the grounds (the ordering of the chaos waters)

7: He formed man from the ground, breathed into him and life was given

8: God planted the garden in the East, in Eden, we’re given mountain imagery here as the rivers flow from the garden.

9: In the middle of the garden are the two trees… the Tree of life and the tree of the knowledge or good and evil.

God establishes the man, gives him the creation mandate to work it care for it.

He then gives him a command about the trees.

God forms Eve and then brings her to Adam

So then we have the conversation in Genesis 3 with Eve and the serpent.

Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?””

Here the serpent engages Eve and questions God’s good word. Notice to it’s a twist of what God originally said in chapter 2.

That is like the enemy, called the deceiver, the adversary,

Genesis 3:2–3 “The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ””

The command is clear, Eve repeats it to the serpent as there is a correct accounting of what God said.

Genesis 3:4–5 ““You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.””

This is curious right, because it’s not that God didn’t want them to know good and evil, that’s what the whole book of Proverbs is about. God was going to teach them good and evil, in fact this was part of the process of God teaching them wisdom, the understanding between good and evil.

But what the serpent is doing is saying not only can you have it, you can have it your way, and you can have it right now.

Heck, God created it… it’s right there. Just take it. Show initiative, figure out what you want and go grab it.

So they eat, they consume, they put themselves in the place of God. They are effectively saying, God I know better than you. They are doing what the enemy did… Isaiah 14:12–15 “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.”

What God wanted to do with Adam and Eve, is lead them, teach them, develop with in them the character that represents Him.

That’s what God does with us who are his, we call this process of sanctification.

It’s a slow fermentation process.

Adam and Eve wanted it then. They saw, they desired, and they took. This is the powerful portrait of the human condition… Seeing, desiring, taking.

When in the seat that we sit, the seat that is characterized by service… we see the influence, power, authority, it satisfies our fallen need for acceptance, belonging, worth, value, and can shape our identity.

I treat people as less then, objects, or as a means to an end. For my consumption.

When we try to order the world our way, to our desires or longing, not that they are always the antithesis of what God wants, but when I force my will in trying to order the things of God, it’s a mess. Simply a mess.

Relationships, endeavors, ministry… it doesn’t end well.

When we use the responsibilities that God entrusts us with for our own carnal desires wanting recognition, titles, “respect”, to get mine for “all the great” I’ve done… or were seeking that retaliation for the hurt that has been done to us. When God says, “Vengeance is mine” and we want to take a crack at it.

Again, it doesn’t end well when we try to reorder chaos that God needs to order. (Chaos, Order, Sin, Chaos, Reordering)

Biblically the examples are endless…

Genesis: Babel

Exodus: Aaron and the calf

Israel: seeking help from Egypt rather than YHWH

A Better Way

Paul to the Philippians

I was struck by Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi when he wrote them this in Philippians 3:1-16

Philippians 3:1–16 NIV

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

We’ve been shown a better way. Hebrews 4:14–15 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

As Gilbert reminded us what the apostle Paul shares with us, exhorting us in his letter to the Ephesians. Be imitators of Christ.

Matthew 4 shows us Jesus’ moment of temptation in his interaction with serpent, the devil. An ‘anti-garden’ a reversal of where Adam and Eve found themselves … starting in paradise where Jesus finds himself in chaos, wilderness, disorder.

All of this imagery is to bring us back to the garden… but here we see the faithfulness of the last Adam.

Bread: desire

Temple: authority

Mountain: power

Jesus ordered his life to the ordering of the Father. He yielded Himself to Him and to His word.

Notice every time that he engaged with the enemy Jesus is relying on the scripture.

Brothers, may we be careful to the voices that we are listening to.

There are competing voices. The voice of God and the voice of the enemy.

A Patient Ferment

In our lives, ministry, and relationships God invites us into the process of rest, trust, and walking in His word.

In 7 days he completed all that he had made in the Universe. He could have done it in a moment… but He didn’t. He is patient, intentional, and good.

Our ambition can be the death of us or our ministry.

May we continue to cultivate that long steady obedience in the same direction. Trusting God at his word. He will build his church.

That in the difficult things that we encounter, I’m finding that we have to hold grief and joy in tension, often times simultaneously.

Isaiah 53:3 “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”

at the same time

Psalm 45:7 “You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”

May God give us grace and hope as we seek to honor God through the patient ferment of our soul.

Let’s pray…

Benediction

May the God of all comfort and hope fill you with His peace that surpasses understanding. May you be reminded each day that the Lord is shaping you, transforming you, into the image of Christ through the circumstances you face. You have been called to this holy work, and God promises to equip you, teach you, guide you, and never leave nor forsake you. Take heart that the trials you endure for the sake of the Gospel produce steadfastness and character within you. Though the forces of this world work tirelessly against you, take courage - for the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. You do not labor alone. The Lord upholds you as you pour yourself out for the flock He has entrusted you with. May His living waters continuously renew and refresh your weary soul. As you sow spiritual things among your congregation, so you will reap blessing upon blessing from our gracious Father. May you finish the race marked out for you, fueled by God’s abounding grace, with the joy set before you driving you onward. To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen..