Every person that professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ has a vocation and that vocation is bigger, more important, and more of a priority than our jobs or…
I believe Dallas Willard used to say, “a good practice was to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs”; doubt your doubts, believe your beliefs. And when we stay immersed in Christian community, even in the midst of our doubts, that's a good way to do that. Because of course, by staying in community, right, the next time Jesus shows up, Thomas was there, and he was able to encounter the risen Christ. And when he did, he was willing to be wrong. When he sees Jesus, he bows at his feet and declares him "My Lord and my God." No doubt about it, I think if we're honest, we'd have to admit that sometimes we get stuck in our doubts because we don't want the humiliation of having to say, "I was wrong." Sometimes it's just safer to say, "I don't believe."
Part one, thinking it was the gardener, just another day, just another person, just a thing. Part two, she hears her name, he calls her name. And part three, she turned toward him. This kind of just walks right out the door with us on any given Monday.
Outbreaks of God’s presence and activity in the ordinary of our lives anytime, anywhere. See a God who can return from the dead can rather easily handle something so pedestrian as omnipresence; present and active everywhere. So, we can encounter him anytime, anywhere if we are attentive. If we are listening. If we have eyes that see and ears that hear. If we’re present in the moments of our lives rather than being behind them or ahead of them, if we’re open to it.
You ever wonder about wilder things? Why are we here? What is the point of these lives we have, if what we see is all there is. You ever wonder that? Is what I see, what I can touch, what I can put my hands on, is that all there is? You ever wonder about that? You ever wonder if what you are and who you are is merely the sum total of what you do? What do you long for that usually stays quiet under the piles of obligations and to-dos and tasks but every now and then for reasons only the shadow knows leaks out and pokes ever so gently at your soul.
You see God's plan, His vision, is and always has been, to prepare a people for himself in the midst of whom he can dwell. Every aspect of our character, our spiritual formation if you will, contributes to that ultimate goal, that ultimate vision. Jesus is planning on riding through the gates of your life. So ,your renovation matters. Not just be cause it makes your life better. Not just because it benefits the people around you. It matters because you are a part of God's city, God's temple, God's people God's kingdom, that He is building for all eternity.
So, when you work to develop a deeper prayer life it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you work on getting deeper into community or being reshaped by the word, it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you seek to make every aspect of your life an act of worship doing everything in the name of Jesus for the glory of God, it matters for God's Eternal Kingdom. When you care for the vulnerable, put others first, learn to see the world through the eyes of a child, make space in your life for others, be meek, and humble in spirit, celebrate with joy, interact with goodness, and kindness, and gentleness. Whatever renovation that you feel God calling you into, you can be sure it's not just for your benefit. It's a part of God's grand vision for his Eternal Kingdom, that he might dwell with his people, for all eternity. That's what the renovation is all about.
In Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out his disciples on a short-term mission trip. As they go out and experience God working through them, and they come back. They come back Luke says, “full of joy”, because of what they had experienced. God working through them. And so, then they tell Jesus about their trip. And you know what their story about their trip generated in Jesus? If filled Jesus with joy. Jesus already knew what was going to happen and still just hearing about what God was doing, fills Jesus full of joy. This is why the celebrations of the church are all about telling the story of what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. Our gatherings on Sunday, our weekly celebrations, are about telling God's story.
God is at work behind the scenes of everyday life stuff, but his name is rarely mentioned. He's working, through all these things. Kind of behind the scenes. So, then we come to the crux of the matter, in verses 16-18, but Ruth replied don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you in me. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. That's the courageous action that unlocks and unleashes all kinds of Kingdom goodness. And throughout the Bible people come to a crossroads where one path is the clear winner. It makes the most sense. It's the obvious choice. But the person makes an unexpected move. They choose the unexpected path. They courageously act for God's sake and for the good of the Kingdom, even though in practical terms it doesn't seem to make sense.
See, when we come to worship that is a very different thing than going to church. Coming to worship is categorically different than going to church. Because when we come to worship, we come thinking about the offering we are going to give. We come ready to do the work of worship. We come ready to pour out our hearts and our minds and our emotions in adoration and praise to our beautiful King with our brothers and with our sisters. We come and we are willing to risk vulnerability for God's sake and each other's sake. And when this happens, when we come in this mindset, you can try this out, but when we start to come in this mindset, I promise you this worship gathering will change in ways that I am incapable of describing.
Prayer may be the most important practice for co-operating with God as he tenderly pulls up the old carpet in our lives and installs his new creation version. But the triggers around prayer are real. I have a bunch of them myself. You may as well. Prayer may be the most important practice, but in some ways it is also the most challenging and the most confusing. It is challenging, we might say, because it is so confusing. Prayer can be so challenging and confusing that our prayer life sometimes becomes part of the old carpet of our lives, meaning our prayers become rote; somewhat meaningless, boring. We think of prayer as a duty lacking much delight and in either the front or in the back of our minds, prayer raises hard questions for which there does not seem to be very many satisfying answers. Questions like, if God knows everything already and knows what is going to happen, why in the world does prayer even matter? Or, if prayer is so powerful then why do so many prayed for people suffer and get sick and die instead of being healed? There are dozens of these graduate-level questions and there's not too many of them that have an easy answer or any answer. So like most things in life, and most things in the life of faith, prayer is a thousand-piece puzzle.
Paul commands us to not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Because then we will be able to discern God's good pleasing and perfect will. And I do not believe it is possible to resist conforming or to be transformed or have our mind renewed or discern God's will unless we are regularly and consistently interacting with the Bible in ways that shape our inner core in the way of New Creation. If we are not consistently engaging with scripture and being shaped by it then inner transformation is a pipe dream and the renewal of our mind just ain't going to happen.