Wednesday, April 30

To listen to the audio version, click here.

Ephesians 6:1-4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Many years ago I had a conversation with an adolescent boy that I never forgot. He had been coming around to our youth ministry for a year or so even though his parents did not attend our church. He was a nice enough kid but there was something about his demeanor that just seemed a bit sad. Eventually he joined a week long summer trip with some 30 other high school students. One evening part way through the trip I joined a group of students, including this young man, for some pizza. At some point the conversation turned to parents which captured my attention because I had just become a parent myself. Most of the students spoke positively about their relationships with their parents while simultaneously laughing at some of their foibles.

This particular young man said nothing at all until he said this, “My old man loves his lawn more than he loves me.”

The whole group went silent as he went on to describe how his father invested time and energy in making sure his lawn was lush and green but seemed to care very little about what was happening in his own son’s life.

I think this is part of what Paul had in mind when he wrote:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children...

The word translated here as “exasperate” has also been rendered as “provoke to anger,” or, “make resentful,” or even, “make bitter.”

So how do parents exasperate, provoke, or embitter their children?

I think parents exasperate their children when they withhold their love by failing to pay attention to the hearts of their children. I think children eventually become resentful when their parent’s love is conditional upon their performance. Children are provoked to anger when parents are unreasonable in their demands; or especially when parents expect children to abide by a higher standard of behavior or character than they, themselves are willing to demonstrate.

Notice that Paul doesn’t just leave parents with a warning about what not to do, he also gives direction about what parents must do.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Two things are important here. First, notice that if children are already “exasperated” in some way it will be almost impossible to teach them about spiritual things. If our children are hurt and angry they will find it very difficult to hear what we have to say about God and faith. Second, the best way to bring our children up in the “training and instruction” of the Lord is to live in such a way as to demonstrate the joy and grace of the Christian life.

In Galatians 5 Paul writes:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

If we put all this together I think we see that children have a much better chance to know and follow Christ when they  see the fruit of the Spirit at work in the lives of their own parents.

If you are a parent or hope to become a parent some day, remember that the best spiritual training manual your kids will ever see is you.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Tuesday, April 28

To listen to the audio version, click here.

Proverbs 24:3-4

By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;

through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures.

When my wife and I had the opportunity to have a home built we invested a great deal of time and forethought in designing every detail of the house. We wrestled with the dimensions of each room, the size and type of windows, the color and style of every fixture, and even the slope of the driveway. At one point when the house was still being framed we didn’t like the shape and placement of one of the bedroom closets, so we had it ripped out and changed.

Simply put, we invested a great deal of time, energy and money in shaping a house out of wood, bricks and dry-wall. The question, of course, is: do we invest the same kind of attention and energy in shaping the relationships that fill the rooms of that house?

Read again the ancient wisdom of the Proverbs:

By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;

through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures.

Not long ago I saw a story about ex-NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal that included photos of his 70,000 square foot home in Florida. The house had something like 11 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms and a garage big enough for 30 cars. The article went on to say, however, that Mr. O’Neal’s wife had moved out with their four children due to marital problems and that Shaq now lives in the mansion by himself.

Now I don’t know Shaquille O’Neal personally, and I want to be careful here, but there’s something very sad about a man living alone in a 70,000 square foot house.

I think the “rare and beautiful treasures” mentioned by the ancient writer refer to the people and relationships that fill a home rather than the furnishings and fixtures of a house. In saying that it takes wisdom, understanding and knowledge to build a home the Bible is not talking about architecture or interior design, but about relationships.

The most precious and valuable treasures in our lives are the people God places in our lives; in particular, the people who live in our homes, our families.

Think of it this way: if you owned a piece of antique furniture that was worth $1 million, how would you take care of it? My guess is you would check on it every day, perhaps several times a day. You would make sure it was safe; you would take measures to protect it from harm; you would polish it often; and sometimes you would just look at it in appreciation of it’s beauty.

Now think of the people who share your home.

Have you taken good care of your treasures today?

Pastor Brian Coffey

Monday, April 28

To listen to the audio version, click here.

Matthew 20:25-28

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Many of us can remember Muhammed Ali, the heavyweight champion boxer, screaming “I am the greatest!” to anyone who would listen. Although his antics were clearly intended to garner publicity, Mr. Ali does serve as a kind of “poster child” for how our culture defines greatness.

Most often we tend to associate greatness with success, accomplishment, celebrity or wealth. And to a degree, of course, that is true. People who work hard to achieve extraordinary success in any field of endeavor, from business to science to sports, can certainly be said to be “great.”

But, in this teaching in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus reshapes our definition of greatness. He says,

“...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Some have referred to Jesus’ teaching here as “downward mobility.” In our current sermon series we are calling it “Growing Smaller.” I like both of these expressions because they communicate how Jesus is turning our understanding of greatness upside-down. He’s saying that spiritual greatness is not defined by how many people are serving you, but by how many people you serve. He is teaching us that true greatness is not found so much in accomplishment or wealth, but in serving others with compassion and grace.

Sadly, today Muhammed Ali is largely bound to a wheel chair, his body ravaged by Parkinson’s Disease. He is almost totally dependent on others who serve his many physical needs. I have a hunch that if you were able to ask him to define true greatness, he would probably point to those who serve him during these twilight days of his life rather than to the current heavyweight boxing champion.

It occurs to me that the beauty of Jesus’ teaching here is that whereas relatively few people can ever achieve what the world regards as “greatness” - we can all learn the greatness of servanthood.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Friday, April 25

To listen to the audio version, click here.

One last reminder for this week…He is still risen!

One week ago it was Good Friday and we were preparing to remember the sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross.  Just five days ago we celebrated the most incredible moment in human history – the Resurrection!  

I recall reading somewhere that the great artist Michelangelo once asked a fellow artist, “Why do you keep painting endless pictures on the one theme of Christ in weakness, Christ on the cross, and most of all, Christ hanging dead?” he asked. “Why do you concentrate on the passing episode as if it were the last work, as if the curtain dropped down there on disaster and defeat?  That dreadful scene lasted only a few hours. But for unending eternity Christ is alive; Christ rules and reigns and triumphs.”

Michelangelo was right (in a sense).  Even though the cross is vitally important because of the redemption that Jesus accomplished for us there, Christians should not emphasize His death to the exclusion of His resurrection.  I think that sometimes we tend to focus on what Jesus did for us on the cross without connecting that moment of sacrifice to the eternal promise we have in His resurrection. 

Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26) The central tenet of our Christian faith this is not just whether we believe that Jesus died for us on the cross.  We must also believe that He rose from the dead.  The Bible says it this way: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Romans 4:25)

Saul of Tarsus believed generally in resurrection before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, but he did not understand the power of The Resurrection.  He was a Pharisee, a member of the same Jewish sect that convinced Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus, and Pharisees believed in resurrection.  But the Paul we have come to know in the New Testament was more than a former Pharisee.  He was completely transformed by his encounter with the risen Jesus.  He was an Apostle, one of just a handful of men who had seen Jesus after the resurrection and were sent to preach the “good news”. 

Paul said, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:12-17) 

When we ask Christ to come live in our hearts, we are given the promise of resurrection. In other words, we are no longer dead to sin, but have the promise of eternal life.

Winston Churchill knew the significance of the resurrection when he said, “When a man steps out of his own grave, He is anything that he says He is, and He can do anything that he says He can do. The resurrection is not only good news, it’s the best news imaginable.”

Lord, You have the power to bring life from death. Thank You that through the resurrection of Jesus You have given me new life – Amen.

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, April 24

To listen to the audio version, click here. 

Oh yeah, by the way…He is still risen!

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.  The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said,  “Surely this man was the Son of God!”   - Mark 15:37-39

Mark doesn’t use a lot of words to tell us what is going on, but there is a lot of meaning packed into those few words.  The moment that Jesus dies, the temple curtain is torn from top to bottom.  Keep in mind that this temple curtain was no flimsy drapery, it was not a shower curtain.  The curtain which separated the Holy of Holies was heavy and thick, almost as substantial as a wall.  According to the Rabbis the curtain was a handbreadth in thickness, and woven of seventy-two twisted plaits, each plait consisting of twenty-four threads.  It was sixty feet long and thirty wide.  Two of them were made every year, and according to the Talmud, it needed three hundred priests to manipulate it.  The holy of holies symbolized the very presence of God and only the High Priest could enter there once a year on Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).  The people depended on the High Priest to make the acceptable sacrifices for their sins.  Look at what the writer of Hebrews has to say about how Jesus Christ has changed our access to God by His death on the Cross.

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  Such a high priest meets our need — one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.  Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.  – Hebrews 7:25-27

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,  
- Hebrews 10:19-22

Jesus is our High Priest!
The Temple is His Body!
The massive curtain that kept us out has been removed!
The perfect sacrifice has been made!
We can come in now with confidence and assurance!
Do you grasp that?  We can come in!

Right here in this passage, Mark shows us the first person to “enter in” after the crucifixion.  His confession, “Surely this man was the son of God” is momentous because the very first line in the first chapter of Mark refers to Jesus this way, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  (Mark 1:1)  Up to this point, nobody had yet figured out just who Jesus really was.  Even Peter’s profession of Jesus as the Christ (Mark 8:29) proved to be a partial understanding until after the resurrection.  The first person to “get it” was a Roman Centurion!?  

The only person a good Roman would ever call the “Son of God” was Caesar himself, but this man gave that title to Jesus.  This Centurion would have been a hardened and brutal man, used to seeing blood and death.  But something about the death of Jesus so deeply impacted him that he was moved to confess the deity of Christ.  The Centurion had seen it all.  The loud cry of Jesus is unusual because victims of crucifixion usually have no strength left, especially when near death.  But Jesus’ death was no ordinary one, nor was his shout the last gasp of a dying man.  It was not a cry of defeat, but a shout of victory.  At the beginning of the crucifixion he was an unbeliever.  But he heard Jesus pray for him,  “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

It really is amazing to think about the fact Jesus’ disciples, who had been told by Jesus repeatedly that this would happen, were confused and they all fled in fear.  The religious leaders and teachers of the law, who studied the Scriptures daily, rejected the Son of God as they stood mocking Him in the crowd.  It is a pagan Roman soldier (and a dying thief) who “gets it” and “gets in”!  

Nobody is beyond the love of God!  Whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done…The love and forgiveness of God is available to you through Jesus Christ!  His death has paid for your sin, and his resurrection from the dead promises you eternal life!

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, April 23

To listen the audio version, click here.

Just another reminder that…He is still risen!

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.  They asked her,  “Woman, why are you crying?”  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said,  “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.  “Woman,” he said,  “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”  Thinking he was the gardener, she said,  “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  Jesus said to her,  “Mary.”  She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic,  “Rabboni!”  (which means Teacher).  Jesus said,  “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them,  ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:  “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.  

– John 20:10-18

On the morning of the Resurrection, Jesus didn’t want Mary to hold on to Him, why not?  I have often wondered about this passage in John’s gospel.  I have wondered why Jesus would tell Mary not to hold on to Him?  Is it a bad thing to cling to Jesus?  Aren’t we supposed to stay close to Him?

One thing is clear, Jesus didn’t mean that Mary was not to touch Him at all, because He told Thomas to touch Him and to see that He was the real thing (John 20:27).  He told her not to “hold on to Him”, but what did He mean?

Mary had experienced a powerful encounter with Jesus. But He didn’t want her to
stop there.  Mary still wanted to hold onto Him.  Mary’s reaction was likely motivated by several things.  One is simply her loving devotion to the Lord.  Mary is overwhelmed by the events of the morning, and as her grief turns to joy, she naturally embraces Jesus.  Another motivation is Mary’s desire to restore the fellowship that His death had broken.  She had lost Him once, and she was going to make sure she didn’t lose Him again - she wanted to keep Jesus with her always.  But Jesus spurred Mary on and commissioned her to share with the disciples about His resurrection.  Jesus had not yet risen with God – He was still on the move.  He was essentially saying, “It’s not going to be the way it used to be.  You can’t hold on to Me in the old way.”

In loosening Mary’s hold on Him, Jesus was, in effect, saying this: “I know you desire to keep Me here, always present with you. I know you want everything to be just the same as before I died. But our relationship is about to change. I’m going to heaven, and you will have the Comforter in My place. You need to start walking by faith, Mary, not by sight.”

Jesus told us that it was better for us that He return to the Father. We, like Mary cannot cling to Jesus’ physical body, we need to know Him, and cling to Him through faith.  We do not need to physically hold onto the "man" Jesus. We need to embrace Him, through faith.  One day we will see Him face to face, but for now, we know with Him and we live in His presence by faith.

One of the biggest tasks we have as Jesus' disciples is to not cling to Jesus, not to hide ourselves away in a church and in the presence of the Lord at the expense of going to share His love with others.  We have a message of hope and forgiveness to share with others who are trapped in hopelessness and despair.  As His disciples, we are not to spend the majority of our time in “holy huddles”, but in out in the world, reaching the lost and the hurting and offering hope in the risen Jesus. 

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, April 22

To listen to the audio version, click here.

Just in case you have forgotten already  - He is still Risen!

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.  For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.  Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.  But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.     - 1 Corinthians 15:3-14

Many biblical scholars agree that the first few verses of this passage are an example of the earliest Christian creed.  A creed is a clear statement intended to be recited in order to teach and affirm certain beliefs.  Creeds were very important in the early church because only the wealthiest individuals could afford to own a written copy of Scripture.  Usually a church or group of churches would own a few copies of portions of Scripture.  The idea of a personal Bible was totally unheard of in the first century.  Believers would recite and memorize creedal statements together as a form of worship and as a way of encouraging and strengthening their faith in Jesus Christ.

The truly remarkable thing about the passage above is that it is entirely centered on the resurrection.  In other words, the origin of the Christian faith hinges on the historical reality of the resurrection.  Notice how specific Paul is in this passage.  He mentions names and numbers of people to whom the risen Jesus had appeared.  Then he goes on to say that most of them are still alive!  Why would he mention this?  Even in the earliest days of Christianity there were skeptics and doubters of the resurrection.  Paul is essentially saying that anybody who doubts can simply go and ask these folks if it is true.  How could Paul make such a statement in a letter that was going to be widely read and circulated if Jesus had not appeared to these people?  

The very fact that Christianity started and grew at all is evidence for the resurrection.  The philosopher and scholar William Lane Craig writes: “Even skeptical New Testament scholars admit that the earliest disciples at least believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead.”  For Jews, the Messiah was viewed as a figure that would be triumphant and rule on David’s throne, not a figure that would be crucified and die.  The resurrection undid the catastrophe of the crucifixion!  The Messiah, who had died, is risen!  The resurrection validated and verified the claims that Christ had made about his own identity.  The origin of Christianity rests solely on the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Listen again to what the apostle Paul says about the importance of the resurrection.  “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

The early Christians clearly grasped the tremendous importance of the resurrection; they understood that everything about their faith depended on this singular historical fact.  Should we do less?  Let’s take a cue from our spiritual ancestors in the early church and affirm the fact that our Lord is risen and our God has conquered the grave every time we come together.  The resurrection is not something that we should remind ourselves of one Sunday a year, it is the truth that we should celebrate and affirm every moment of every day that we live!

Jeff Frazier

Monday, April 21

To listen to the audio version, click here.

Well, Easter is over with for another year.  Actually, it's not done.  According to the Christian calendar, Easter is not just a day, it is a season, 50 days long.  But let's face it, most of us don't really celebrate Easter as a season.  We have one busy Sunday, and then a few more days of making ourselves sick with chocolate eggs and jellybeans.  Then it's back to normal (whatever normal means).  The day after Easter often strikes me as a little bit of a let-down.

Why does this happen?  For those in ministry, I can say that one reason may be the fact that we run around like crazy during holy week, planning a bunch of different services and events.  Easter morning is a marathon, and then we crash.  Perhaps you haven’t been a part of 11 services in 3 days, but all the same, I'm guessing you can relate to having a bunch of work go into something, and then, when it's done, feeling more tired than happy.  But besides the fatigue factor, I think there's a deeper reason for the day-after-Easter blues.

Easter is filled with the message of the power of new life, of death's defeat.  Jesus triumphs over his death and over ours, and it's a day full of hope and joy.  So we sing with all the joy we can muster.  We're full of hallelujahs as we get into the spirit of the day. "Christ is risen!" we say as we shake hands.  " Risen Indeed!"  The resurrection seems true on Easter Sunday.  It seems possible to believe that things can be different than what they are.  This hopeful feeling may stick with us through a nice family get-together, but then...In a lot of ways, we're still waiting for the resurrection, and it's hard to celebrate while you wait.  

Even when we do experience little bits of the life of Christ growing in our souls, it's never a complete transformation.  We sing about resurrection but we also know that we're not there yet.  For all our Easter joy, we're still the same people that we were before Sunday.  We still have to go to a job that we don’t like, or we wish we had a job that we didn’t like.  A friend still has cancer.  There are still bills we can’t pay.  People are still hungry, and sad, and struggling with painful relationships, agonizing decisions, and a thousand other things.  

I don’t think it was this way for the disciples on the say after the resurrection!  I don’t think they were sitting around depressed and bored when they heard that their master was alive, do you?

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.   – John 20:19-20

I have often thought about the resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples, saying "Peace be with you."  And I have thought about Jesus showing them the wounds on his hands, and in his side.  You know, even Jesus didn't get rid of all his scars.

It's easy to fall into a pattern of wishing that faith would fix things, that God would intervene and immediately turn our confusion to clarity and our sadness to joy, and then feeling disillusioned when it doesn't work out that way, and wondering if there was something wrong with us... or with God.  It's a hard pattern to live in.  We want solutions, and when there aren't any surely it must be somebody's fault.
Perhaps the resurrection doesn't work in the way we expect it to work.  Perhaps we experience God's grace, and all the new life that comes with that, but we still have the same wounds and scars we did before.  Jesus is transformed in the resurrection, but not so much so that he loses his injuries - they just aren't killing him anymore.  Maybe that's how resurrection works in our lives, too.  We carry scars and wounds, but because of the resurrection, we know that they are not fatal.

Easter isn't supposed to magically change everything... it's supposed to remind us that everything has already been changed because of what happened on the third day!  So let’s live this day with grace and courage, with patience and hope. The resurrection is real, even if it's not easy.

Jeff Frazier