Author: Jon Gauger

What does true greatness look like?

I think I saw a glimpse this week.

Imagine a training conference for Christian media professionals from all across West Africa. Envision197 participants from 15 countries all gathering in Accra, Ghana to learn practical techniques in radio, video, leadership, and social media.  Moody Radio calls it the “Global Partners Training.” 

The conference featured energetic presenters, powerful worship, great preaching at night…not to mention delicious meals.  Over the course of the conference, I figured they served a total of 2000 meals to our group.

Unlike typical American conference centers, there were no “built in” facilities here.  We all ate outside underneath three large white tents.   Two serving lines formed outside the tents for every meal.

Every plate, fork and water bottle had to be carted by hand out to the tents.  Every grain of rice, every bite of fish was hauled over in coolers, or on large trays.

But there was one meal I will remember for a long time.   It was lunch time and the dark clouds overhead made good on their threat with a rainstorm the likes of which I have never encountered.

Bathtubs of rain dumped all over the conference grounds, just as the lunch was being served.  The conference participants were largely spared the soaking, protected under the tents.

But the servers just outside the covering of the tents were entirely exposed. In seconds, their white blouses and shirts were drenched. As I took cover, I watched rain dribble down noble faces. I was in the presence of greatness.

Jesus said, “Whoever would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all.”

The greatest of all at the Global Partners training were not the presenters or the preacher or the worship leaders.  But the great ones were easy to spot. They were the ones serving.  Dripping in the rain.

They say that we either waste time, use time, or invest time.

Several weeks ago, my wife and I enjoyed the weekend company of five year old Joslynn, our granddaughters. The little blonde kindergartner is reluctant to leave our house on Saturday.  Doesn’t even like to get changed out of her pajamas.

But she loves to make paper airplanes, which we take great pains to color before folding and flying.   Joslynn is not content until we’ve created not just one or two planes, but a fleet sufficient in number to replace an entire wing of the United States Air force. 

But Joslynn had recently seen the Pixar movie, Monsters, Inc.  She asked me draw the outlines of the main characters so she could color them. The truth is I can't draw for diddly.   Never could.

But Josie absolutely positively had to have those characters drawn, so I gave it my best shot. Grabbed my tablet and did an online search for images that I did a poor job of copying onto her paper.  But Josie never once complained or criticized.  She colored.

There was the big and fluffy Sully, Mike—the happy go lucky green guy whose one eye represents the full orb of his diminutive body. We drew Randall, the mean hearted purple lizard, and Boo—cute as a button—smiling and waving.

The day flew by and by nightfall, Josie was back home.   Getting ready for bed, I grabbed my tablet.  But before powering it down, I checked the most recent image on the screen. It was Boo.  The cute little girl from Monsters, Inc.  Still smiling.  Still waving.  Only now, it felt like a wave goodbye. I was not prepared for the lump in my throat.  

Left to myself, I probably would not have suggested we take a whole day and sit around in pajamas with crayons in our hands. But now that it's come and gone, I feel schooled.  Humbled.

I’m not sure that Saturday of coloring connects directly with Proverbs 22:6—"Train up a child in the way he should go…"  But I’m thinkin’ somehow….it just might.

Toxic baloney.  When it comes to worldwide media coverage of Israel, that’s increasingly the diet we’re being fed.   And that toxic baloney is slowly poisoning the hearts and minds of millions.

Example #1: The Land

Listening to today’s media, one gets the notion that Israel is a greedy land grabber, reluctant to share with anyone else.

The fact is, the Arab world is nearly 800 times the size of Israel. Not eight or even eighty.  But eight HUNDRED times as large.   So why is Israel being pressured to give up the tiny slice it has to the many who have much more?

Example #2 Regional Conflict

It is increasingly suggested that Israel is the source of most trouble in the Middle East.  But what about the horrific war in Syria—which has nothing to do with Israel?  What about the massive unrest and murderous demonstrations in Egypt?  From the instability of the Iranian nuclear program, to Sunnis killing Shiites in Iraq, the Middle East has never lacked for trouble—quite apart from Israel.

Example #3 The Security Fence Along the West Bank

Prior to the violence of the second intifada, there was no wall, and suicide bombers walked right into Israel and detonated deadly explosions.  Since the construction of that barrier, the bombings have almost entirely stopped.  There are dozens of countries that have fences or walls at their borders including the U.S., Turkey, Northern Ireland, India, Spain, Thailand, the Netherlands, Finland and Yemen.  Does Israel not have a right to protect itself against suicide bombers? 

You don’t get this kind of perspective from the mainstream media.
Instead, we are fed a toxic baloney.

I’m not saying Israel is perfect. No country is, including ours. But I am saying that many of the charges being made are distorted and one-sided…to keep us from knowing “the whole truth.”

The ultimate truth to keep in mind–the age old promise of Genesis 12:3 regarding Israel:  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

 

Gizmos and gadgets.

You'll see a ton of them if you go camping.

Over Memorial Day, I couldn't help but notice the massive amounts of stuff people trotted out to their campsites.

There were all kinds of ingenious quick-shade gizmos.  Few who lugged them out and set them up could resist the urge to hang from them cute little lights of various themes..

Then there were more traditional dining canopies—their netted walls and zippered doors defying the most eager of flies a share in a meal in the great outdoors.

I saw all kinds of cooking implements.  Things for which I have no name.  Things for which I could not even guess a purpose. Many felt the need for a full-sized gas grill.  So naturally, those were packed up, set up and fired up.

There were elaborate outdoor rugs and lawn coverings.  I saw a thousand different lawn chair designs, each more fancy than the last.  (Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration…but it sure felt that way).

All of this, mind you, for a three day weekend.  That's the thought that hit me as I saw the sweat that went into taking down and packing up all this…..stuff.  For some folks, this process took several hours!

When the Bible calls us “strangers and aliens on this earth,” shouldn't that give us pause to evaluate the gizmos and gadgets that fill our homes?

Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of man has no place to rest His head.”

James 4:14 cautions us, “What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

I would never presume to be your judge.   I'm struggling, like you, to understand what it means to follow Christ in the area of stuff.

I'm not sure of all the answers.

But I think for me, part of the answer has to be less gizmos and gadgets.

Time capsules—we've all seen these eclectic collections stuffed into cornerstones of new buildings in an attempt to give future generations a cultural snapshot of a previous era. 

My wife and I discovered that we actually own a time capsule—our pop-up camper, also known as a tent trailer.  For the uninitiated, it's a metal box with a roof that cranks up, revealing canvas sides and a set of beds on each end.   It's like a tent—only much nicer.

But more than a decade ago, we upgraded to a hard side trailer known as a fifth wheel.  It's nicer yet.  Thus, for nearly fifteen years, the tent trailer has convalesced behind our garage in what used to be our garden—now a retirement property for aging campers.

This weekend, we got it out, cranked it up, and discovered it was exactly how we'd left it.  Yet oddly enough, it appeared to us both like a time capsule of sorts.

Sifting through the contents, we confirmed that sheets and blankets, zipped up in protective plastic cases, were free of mice or insect infiltration.  Unopened packages of paper plates, cups, and plastic eating utensils were nicely stacked in one cabinet.  In another, a fire starter—affectionately known in our family as a "clicker"—that still sparked to life with flame.

Yet there were also signs of decay.  The latches that hold down the collapsible roof have grown stiff.   The decals on the sides continue to fade with years of exposure to the sun. And looking underneath, there's the ominous presence of rust. 

Ol' Bessie cleaned up nicely, but she's showing signs of age. Like you—and me.

Which takes me to 2 Corinthians 5:1. "Our bodies are like tents that we live in here on earth. But when these tents are destroyed, we know that God will give each of us a place to live. These homes will not be buildings that someone has made, but they are in heaven and will last forever."

Aren't you glad there's a “forever?”

Sin.

“Everybody” says “nobody” talks about it anymore.

So I’m about to.

Sin is falling short of God’s perfection, His holy standards.  The Bible teaches that “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23).   No Christian would argue that “the wages (or results) of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Most of us are comfortable acknowledging the wrongness of sin, its penalty, and the way out of sin God offers through Christ.  But acknowledging our sin in the nitty gritty of life…that’s a different story.

Forgive me for the list I am about to offer.  It almost certainly contains an item or two you would prefer to “discuss” rather than bluntly label as sin.  But I stand by this list.  It is not comprehensive, but is designed to focus on a few sins with which many of us have grown so comfortable, we rarely see them as sins.

• It is a sin for a man to deliberately take a second look at a beautiful woman and linger.
• It is a sin when your employer is paying you to work to be checking out the latest sports scores.
• It is a sin to respond to the loud noise of a slamming door exclaiming, “Jesus Christ!”
• It is a sin to make the U-turn I sometimes make early in the morning because traffic is so light…and the odds of a cop watching are so slim.
• It is a sin to say anything mean about someone else.
• It is a sin to let the sun set with you still being angry at your friend, your co-worker, your spouse.

Each sin in this list has so much Bible condemning it, the very act of our rationalizing is the evidence that we’ve grown soft on sin.

But God has not.

Our unholy accommodation notwithstanding, sin is still sin.

It’s time to confess.

Time to repent.

 

Why do we like our music so loud?

Go to a concert—whether rock, pop, country or Christian—and your ears are almost melted off by the end of the evening.

Go to most restaurants that are considered “in”….and chances are the music is cranked up so loud that you have to yell to carry on a conversation.

Driving an expensive car is not enough to be truly cool.  What you need is a subwoofer that’ll blow out glass.  LOUDNESS.  That’s what makes you cool.

And the question, again, is why?

Well in the restaurant world, there actually are some answers.  Research shows that with the music amped up, we eat more, drink more, and do it in less time.  So restaurants can ring up more sales in less time.

But that still doesn’t explain our cultural welding of loud and music to become a de facto standard of coolness.

Our love for all things loud has even crept into our churches.   Now don’t get me wrong.  As a brass instrument player, I get loud.  I kind of like loud.   But there’s a problem when loud is ALL we love…and loud is ALL we play.

The Old Testament prophet, Zechariah , urged us, “Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling."

Job, in his suffering, prayed, “Teach me, and I will be quiet…”

David was a man who knew all about living loud.  From noisy battlefields, to boisterous parades, to joyous worship music.  Yet he wrote in Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

It might just be that your personal bent is toward loud music, loud living.  But if we are going to connect with the Living God, at some point, we are going to have turn the volume down. Literally.  Spiritually. Regularly.

Have you heard the story of Irena Sendler from World War II?

When Hitler took over Irena’s beloved Poland, he set up ghetto camps where Jewish families lived before being crammed into cattle cars and hauled off to concentration camps where most died.

But Irena Sendler’s heart was touched by the plight of the Jewish people, especially their young children. She knocked on Jewish doors in the Warsaw ghetto and, in Sendler's own words, "tried to talk the mothers out of their children."   Irena offered an escape from near certain death, offering to take the little ones to Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes where they would be given non-Jewish aliases.  Imagine the parents’ agony.

The children that were released to Irena’s care now had to be carefully removed from the guarded Ghettos.  Some were stolen out in boxes, suitcases, sacks and coffins.  Babies were sedated to quiet their cries, some of them transported in the bottom of a tool box. Irena carefully wrote down the real names of every child taken—in hopes of reuniting them with family members after the war. The names were placed in jars that she buried in a garden.

Ultimately, Irena was caught and tortured by the Nazis who broke both her feet and legs. In the end, though, she saved nearly 3000 Polish Jews.

What is lesser known is that Irena’s father was a physician many years before World War II, at a time when the deadly disease, typhus, was a major problem in Poland.    Fearful of catching the sickness, many doctors refused to treat patients in a region which happened to have a large number of Jews living there. Not Irena’s father.  He faithfully, courageously treated everyone…and died from Typhus in1917.

In profound thanks, Jewish community leaders approached Irena’s mother with financial assistance for Irena’s education.  It was a gesture that Irena never forgot…and a kindness she returned, trip after dangerous trip into the Jewish Ghetto.

Proverbs 24:11 “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”

That’s Irena’s story.  What’s yours?

Do you and I worship “niceness?

I say…quite possibly.

As Americans, we prefer nice churches in nice neighborhoods with nice seats in nice auditoriums.

Gone the days of squawky P.A. Systems, our churches rumble with the latest and greatest in audio gear.  The sound is…pretty nice.  The job of doing PowerPoint and creating video clips is now the domain of a “Pastor of Visual Arts.”   The stuff on the screen, frankly, looks pretty nice. 

Nothing wrong with any of that.  But niceness—as a frame of reference—can go too far.  It comes to a crash up against an old hymn that’s fallen on hard times:

Man of sorrows, what a name.

For the Son of God who came.

Ruined sinners to reclaim.

Hallelujah!  What a Savior.

Wow!  We love Jesus the nice teacher.  We love Jesus the nice healer, Jesus the nice good-deed-doer. But that name, “Man of sorrows”–lacks any of the niceness we crave.

The language is so blunt, even stark.  “Ruined sinners.”  Not the least bit nice.

We want so badly to believe better of ourselves.

So we labor under false notions of a humanity that somehow has a shred of something worth redeeming.  Something nice. But we don't.  Apart from Christ, there is not so much as a single atom within us that is nice.

Quite the contrary assures Isaiah 64:6: “All our righteousness is like filthy rags!”

Which makes the rest of the song so remarkable:

Guilty, vile and helpless, we

Spotless Lamb of God was He.

Full atonement—can it be?

Hallelujah, What a Savior!

The grand gospel story, of course, is more than the ugliness of sin.  Much more.

But it is far too epic to stoop to mere niceness. 

 

Where’s all the music?

When I fill in as host for Moody Radio’s morning show, we do a feature called “Breakfast for the Soul.”  Essentially, it’s a brief devotional that I try to follow up with a song that fits the reading.    But I’m often stumped. Example?

Where is the chorus that reminds us fasting is the expected behavior of a normal Christian life?  Ever heard a song about the persecuted church?  Or loving people living a homosexual lifestyle?  Good luck finding that kind of stuff.

So I’ve taken the liberty of crafting an opening verse or chorus on some real life subjects that probably should be addressed in a song.  Like this one about sharing Christ with my neighbors:

Now that winter's come and gone

I'm more concerned about my lawn

Than the lost folks living right across the street.

I spend hours picking weeds

When I should be planting seeds:

Acts of kindness, prayers and times to meet and greet.

Now let’s be honest.  Most of us struggle at some point when we give our tithes or gifts on Sunday.   But nobody has yet to write a song about that.  Here’s a suggested opening:

Lord, in my heart, I know that tithing's good.

But I'd keep it all for me if I thought I could.

So overcome my greed

With the sense of a greater need.

Teach me what it means to really give.

 

Honestly, we need a song that speaks transparently of our struggle with fasting.  Example?

We’re not so big on fasting.

We much prefer to eat.

Deny ourselves and skip a meal—

To pray?  That’s such a feat!

 

And for those of us who are addicted to anxiety…how ‘bout a prayerful chorus like this:

Forgive me for my worry—it's the sin that just won't quit.

Sometimes it feels like praying doesn't help the slightest bit.

I've memorized the verses and I try to meditate.

But worry has been winning the upper hand of late.

 

So how ‘bout it song writers out there?

Isn’t it time our choruses got more honest?  More real?

I think so.

 

Psalms 9:11   Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion; Declare among the peoples His deeds.