3 ... 2 ... 1

I have never diffused a bomb.

Once I stood alongside a man who was threatening to kill himself

But these days are scarier these lives lost, there are people ready to explode, there are crimes being committed, there are people fearing for their lives of their children, there are words being lobbed into the public, there are memes and posts and friendships lost and this week I have wanted to shout out!

Yet, God spoke to me this week, with a reminder I am to follow in Christ footsteps,

Jesus said,

John 5:19 The Message

19 So Jesus explained himself at length. “I’m telling you this straight. The Son can’t independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does.

Let me make it clearer.

Jesus only did what He was told by God to do.

Jesus walked by many who needed healing to heal the one God told him to. Jesus spoke to power when He felt God led him to speak to power. He kept silent when God led him to be silent. Jesus would not be pushed to do anything God did not call him to do, ever.

I am seeking to do what God is telling me to do. And this week God told me to listen.

I'm not saying God told you to listen. In theology terms we say general revelation, something for all of us like loving our neighbor is for all of us, gathering for worship is for all of us, general revelation is for everyone but something specific, a specific revelation is when God tells you to go, be, do or not do. Like God told Moses to go the Pharaoh. He might tell you to talk to go to a specific person, or go to this new job, or even turn down a street. Mine was a specific revelation.

This was my revelation. God told me “sh, listen.”

I felt like a coward.

I am very familiar with a poem from Reinhold Neihbuhr, a pastor in Germany, who initially supported the rise of Hitler’s fascism and then after realizing the pressure the Nazi’s were using to prevent the church to be a real church and the spying that was taking place, he finally realized his horrific sin and worked to oppose Nazism. He later wrote a very famous poem, one which is on the wall of the Holocaust museum,

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It calls on us to speak out. Even knowing this, this powerful and important poem was not for me at this time. I know the Lord told me not to talk, but to listen.

This is some of what he told me,

James 3:7–10 The Message

7 This is scary: You can tame a tiger, 8 but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. 9 With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. 10 Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can’t go on.

Stop here for a long time.

Meditate on this scripture. Put this as your lock screen on your phone. See it often. Let’s read it again

James 3:9–10 CSB

9 With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in God’s likeness. 10 Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.

This is a dangerous time.

Every word rips at the flesh of open wounds.

I like helping people see truth. I love pointing people to God, but that can lead to pride. A quick response especially when it makes me feel good to point out some wisdom. A failure to listen, A failure to respond in love, a building up of my pride.

God showed me this week my pride is not as important as love.

This is a time of deep, deep grief. And in times of deep grief, the wise are careful with their words.

My Pastor friend Kevin White, said of the mother’s of murder victims, they are unstoppable because they don’t care if they die anymore. They feel they have no more reason to live.

There are millions in our country who are metaphorically the grieving family of murder victims and none of us are untouched. We are all grieving.

Stand next to a woman grieving her murdered child and come up with anything on your tongue that will change that pain.

Our nation stands next to a murdered son and recognizes intense pain but doesn’t know what to do, what to say and in the search for saying the right things I hear and see so many awful things. I see the anger expressed and defenses given and actions of pain, people desiring to act.

In the midst of all of it, I heard the Lord say,

1 John 4:7 CSB

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

What does love look like at a time like this?

In so many I listen to this week I heard, deep seeded hurt and pain.

No matter the level of melanin in the skin, the amount of years on this earth, I heard pain.

When attending a funeral most hurt. Some come out of respect aware that there friends are hurting, then maybe they remember the hurt from other pains, and they hurt for their friends. Then there are some who are overcome by past deaths, past things they never knew hurt so bad but this funeral brings all that past back as a time for grief bigger than just this funeral. And there are those who knew the person, will miss the person, are struck by intense grief, and the grief gets deeper and deeper the closer you get to the person who has passed. Whose lives will be reminded often that their loved one is gone.

Each and every one of us can find ourselves at this national funeral.

The Lord’s guidance in grief is not very specific. He tells the ancient Hebrews to wear ash cloth and tear their clothes, Jesus himself wept, cried, but really what comes out, comes out. The rules are not much for how to grieve. We aren’t told what we can do, what prayers to pray, what things to eat or really any rituals at all, but God does tells us in our grief, specifically about death, to not lose faith, and grieve as if we have no hope.

Our hope remains in Christ Jesus our Lord, and our hope does not rest in systems, principalities, or rulers, and it never will. Our hope will always remain in the Lord.

I don’t know what this funeral is for: A funeral would mean someone died and yes George Floyd’s funeral was this week, but I believe we are hoping this was the funeral for the death of horrific policing, of racial division, of racism

Our heart is broken.

And our hope remains in Christ Jesus our Lord, and our hope does not rest in systems, principalities, or rulers, and it never will. Our hope will always remain in the Lord. Not in political parties, companies, jobs, or substances. Our hope remains in the Lord.

1 John 4:16 CSB

16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

As we remain in love, than we support love and not a system.

As we focus or work on loving as Christ sometimes the system catches up and works for Christlike love too and we work together but most of the time the system doesn’t, the systems fail, so what should we do, if the system is failing, we concentrate on bringing on more love. If the system gets more angry and fights so what. If the system shames so what. Fight the system with love. We should expect the system to fail and love more. We should work to make the system love and know that when the system gets thrown away, God remains, we will love.

I might be speaking over your head but I hope the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to what I am saying.

The one who loves no longer lives for themself.

1 John 4:19–21 CSB

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

We are called to love God. We are called to love one another.

We work out our faith by practicing peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control

wherever we are at. In our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, dinner tables, wherever! This is what we do toward each other and to the other in this community and the other in the world. Keep your mind here, keep your thoughts on you and the individual.

What you and I , how we are to toward each other and to the person we meet how we live with them is working out our faith by practicing peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

When we don’t we are in the wrong, we are in sin, and we need repentance. Does our life, what we are actually doing with our day between waking up and going to the bathroom, all the way through the day to us turning off the light and going to sleep, does what we have done, what we have said, what we have learned, is it love?

This is a time of most necessary change and change always comes through personal repentance.

Repentance requires honesty. The kind of honesty that sees beyond the way we want people to see us, or even the way we want to see ourselves but being willing to let God show us exactly what I or what you intended, meant, and tried to hide, about ourselves. That we open ourselves to honesty with God.

Psalm 139:23–24 CSB

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

I have been desiring so much to not lose you as members of this church,I have failed to remember, to only focus on what God desires, because I have been failing for too long, I have thought long and hard about others on Facebook or those in our community hearing what I say The messages I receive from so many to speak up and say what they would like me to say, i remember criticisms of sermons from decades ago from those long past, and instead of casting those aside I have lived with a fear of saying the wrong thing so much that at times it has been impossible to hear God. I had this fear in 2019, it’s been with me a long time, then I came upon the year 2020. God said, “sh, listen.”

I repent now and realize I do not need to live in fear of others only in love. I desire to lead you in repentance, please follow me and ask God to search your heart right now, God says to us,

1 John 4:18 CSB

18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.

Love.

Today, do not fear offending your friend, focus on loving your friend. Do not fear saying the right thing or being smart enough,

Love.

Do not fear not taking a stand, love. Do not fear hatred, love. Do not fear violence or disease, love. Do not fear losing America, love. Do not fear having enough time for yourself, love. Do not fear loss, love. Do not fear being overwhelmed, love. Do not fear others controlling you, love. Do not fear being ignored, love. Do not fear missing out, Love. Do not fear. Do not fear. Do not fear.

REPENT FROM WHAT WE DO TO RID OUR LIFE OF FEAR.

Give it to Jesus today.

What God has called us to do, he has equipped us to do. Love over another.

Will you?