Pastor Steve Richards

What do you want? I ask this question a lot. Really, what do you want? Not the stuff you would like to acquire, but in living today and tomorrow and into the future, what do you want? It is a question that often comes to me in prayer. What do I want? Because when it comes down to reasonable alternatives, what do I want?

Today, in reading from 2 Peter 1:3-11, I hear what God wants for me. And what God wants for me actually sounds wonderful. Peter tells us that God has already given us everything we need. We are able to participate in what is the essence or nature of God. As we build one aspect of Christian character on another, we become who God wants us to be: faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection and love.

What God wants for us is God’s promise. I know it best from John 10:10 where Jesus says: “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.” Fullness of life – is a promise. This does not happen by accident. I have to want what God wants for me. I have to choose this. And every day, I’m given another opportunity to choose.

Today’s readings: Isaiah 50-52; Psalm 92; 2 Peter 1

And the God of all grace… will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:10)

As I read the final chapter of 1 Peter, I realized how in five short chapters some form of the word suffer appears fifteen times. Peter was an eyewitness to the suffering Jesus experienced in the hours leading to Jesus’ death on the cross. Peter spent his life within a culture that suffered horribly under Roman rule. Peter was a leader in the Christian movement and the suffering that so many faced as they lived by a faith that went again the cultural and religious norm. Peter must have suffered emotionally and spiritually from his own lack of faith during the night of Jesus’ arrest. Suffering had a profound impact and left an indelible image that shaped Peter’s understanding of faith and the power of God’s grace.

Those who first listened to the words of Peter’s letter knew suffering. I cannot even begin to compare my experience of suffering with that experienced by Peter or the first Century believers . But then, I don’t have to have their experience. Suffering is personal. It can be physical, emotional, spiritual. Through the years, I’ve listen to many who were suffering. I’ve sat beside the beds of many who were suffering. I’ve experienced my own forms of suffering – enough to know the importance and power of God’s grace.

Suffering can serve a greater purpose. Not that suffering exists so that we will know this greater purpose, but we can find through our own experience of suffering a greater purpose. Humble yourself, says Peter. Cast all your anxiety on God. So that in the midst of suffering, great and small, God can lift you up.

“To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

Today’s readings: Isaiah 46-49; 1 Peter 5

If you knew the end of all things was near, what would you do? If today was the last day, how would that change the way you live today? The editors of the Bible I am using put the words “Living for God” at the beginning of 1 Peter 4. It prompts me to wonder what would change if today was solely about living for God.

Here’s what I hear from Peter: 1) be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray; 2) love each other deeply; 3) offer hospitality to one another without grumbling; 4) use whatever gift you have received to serve others; 5) speak as one who speaks the very words of God; 6) serve with the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

If I knew today was my last day, are these the things that would be forefront in my mind? Would this be my mission for the day? Why not live today as if today is that day?

To him be the glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Today’s readings: Isaiah 43-45; 1 Peter 4

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” This phrase is attributed to a 19th century journalist named Finley Peter Dunne, but I first heard the words in a preaching class in seminary. It was suggested that this is what our preaching would be if we would be true to the Gospel. With the opening word of Isaiah 40, that phrase came to mind. With this chapter, we hear a shift in Isaiah’s message. The people are afflicted. The unimaginable has happened to the people of Judah. Jerusalem now destroyed and the Jews taken away as slaves. Comfort. Comfort, says the LORD.

When I am feeling comfortable, the message of scripture always seems to mess with my comfort zone. And, when I am feeling afflicted, I hear the message of comfort that God has not left me alone. All around the world today, there are people who are comfortable and there are people who are afflicted. The same God is available to all through his Word.

With the words of Psalm 34, Peter reminds us: “Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” Then, and perhaps only then, you will be ready to meet a challenging and often hostile world. Then, and perhaps only then, will you be prepared to reply to anyone who asks you to explain the hope that is in you.

It’s not that I have this faith all figured out. I keep trying, today as every day, to be available and to be prepared – comforted or afflicted, may the One who is in me be greater than the one who is in this world.

Today’s readings: Isaiah 40-42; 1 Peter 3

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. (1 Peter 2:16)

A few weeks ago, I had breakfast with my best friend from college. We had lost track of each other until one day last month I came home to a message on my answering machine inviting me to breakfast the next morning. We had not seen each other in thirty years! Much of our conversation over breakfast was reminiscing our college experiences and some of the troubles that today we can laugh about. When I was eighteen and left the shelter of home for the less sheltered environment of college, I felt free. I could suddenly do what I wanted to do (which of course was not entirely true). Within the first couple of weeks of college, I got involved in what I and others thought would be a prank of legedary proportions. And it became that, but not for the reasons we had hoped. It became legedary because of the trouble we caused – almost ending my time in college within those first couple of weeks. (You’re curious. I know. But this is my blog, and there are a few secrets I won’t write about here!)

Let me just say I began to realize that true freedom is not about doing whatever I desire, but true freedom is about choosing to live in submission to God. My idea of the Christian faith was having the right ideas while living any way I wanted. In other words, as long as I believed the right things, I was free. Not so. Even the first Christians struggled with this. If belief in Christ set them free, then they were free indeed. Just not the way they wanted. Freedom is choosing to submit and living in submission to the way of Christ. We are never forced to do that. We have been given the freedom to choose.

My life is not my own. It is a gift from God, and the greatest blessing comes in living to honor my Maker so that others will see that God is glorified through me. So, I am free! Now what will I do today?

Today’s readings: 2 Kings 20; Isaiah 38-39; Psalm 75; 1 Peter 2

The prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

Prayer is really about making ourselves available. It is being present to God. When we are available and present to God, the extraordinary happens. Just remember that the end result may not be what we want.

Reading in 2 Kings this morning, I found the choice given to the people to be very familiar. I have not faced their situation, but I recognize the temptation. Trust the Lord and Hezekiah and die, or trust the Assyians and enjoy prosperity. (2 Kings 18) The choice was the complete opposite from what Moses offered the people: choose God and find life. The temptation given by the king of Assyrian was prosperity, but in no way would that have been the outcome if the people had chosen the Assyrian way over God’s way. But there is still that voice I hear, that frighteningly familiar voice: “follow me and I will give you what you want”. That voice has always been a lie, because it shuts God out.

Thursday’s reading from Psalm 46 still works: Be still and know that I am God. Translation: Enough! Listen to God. Be present. Be available to God. The prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective.

Today’s readings: 2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chronicles 32; James 5

James indicates we have a choice. We can be a friend of the world or a friend of God, but we cannot be both. To be a friend of the world negates a friendship with God. To be a friend with God makes a friendship with the world unnecessary.

As I think about a friendship with the world, it seems self-centered. How many times have I spent on what I wanted only to realize I didn’t really want it? I was spending on pleasures that could not satisfy. I was seeking a friendship that would lift me up.

At the heart of a friendship with God are ten commands (James 4:7-10): submit to God; resist the devil; come near to God; wash your hands; purify your hearts; grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble. “And he will lift you up.” I don’t like to admit it, but that’s really what I’m seeking – to be lifted up. And a friendship with the world cannot do that.

God is ready and waiting. God longs to establish a friendship with you, a friendship more satisfying that you can ever imagine. Like any friendship, it will take time. But what could be more worthwhile?

Today’s readings: 2 Chronicles 29-31; James 4

In Psalm 46:10, God says, “Be still.” The Hebrew word probably means something more like “Enough!” Like taking an out-of-control child by the shoulders and saying, “That’s enough!” STOP. And God says, then “know that I am God.”

Today’s Old Testament readings return to the historical narrative and how Assyria finally removes the king of Israel, takes the Israelites into exile, and sends Assyrians to resettle Samaria. The writers tell us it is because God has had enough. James, the brother of Jesus, writes about the danger of speech that is out of control (what would he say about the political discourse of a 21st century political campaign). Enough!

When have we recognized the signs that whatever we have said or done has crossed the line and become inappropriate? The problem is that we often don’t recognize. It takes someone else or some crisis. A heart attack signals a lifetime of fatty food – enough! A pattern of unexceptable practices that do not change results in a firing – enough! A child’s constant taunting and teasing of a sibling results in being sent to his or her room – enough! A lifetime that has become so fast paced that what really matters has gotten lost – enough! But must it take a crisis or an intervention to hear the message “be still”?

Because until we are, we are unable to hear and see and know the presence of God. I’ve got to admit a recent pattern in which my calendar has crowded out the time it takes to write this blog. My fault, no one else’s. Not that what I write is all that significant – except that it is, for me. To slow down, to stop, to  listen to the voice of God that is shouting Enough already! What I may have been missing from my day are the words of Psalm 46 that follow.

“I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Today’s readings: 2 Kings 17; 2 Chronicles 28; Psalm 46; James 3

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  (Hebrews 11:1)

In this chapter, the writer shows that all of scripture points toward the one thing – the main thing. Faith. The next chapter will tell us how we do this – how we have faith. In this chapter, we are shown how faith was central in the lives of even the most unlikely of people.

I am reflecting on this chapter as I prepare to speak at a memorial service later today. It is always a defining moment. At death, do you believe in what you cannot see? So often, I am part of remembering a person who could not only see but lived with great hope in what was not yet but would be. In spite of the circumstances of life that would have turned many people away from God (in the face of bad things happening to good people many reject God), they found faith that would carry them through the circumstances toward an enduring hope now and forever. To be able to stand and honor such a person, gives me great confidence that I too can be sure of what cannot be seen – faith and hope that will not disappoint me. Forever.

Today’s scripture: Isaiah 19-21; Hebrews 11

It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:31)

That’s a sentence that has my attention. What could be so dreadful about the hands of God? Then I remembered some of my parenting moments. There were times when our children were quite young that they would lose control. A tantrum would ensue or ever escalating inappropriate behavior. They was no reasoning with them. So, I would pick her up in my arms. She would fight against me, arms and legs struggling to be free. I, however, was too strong for her to have any hope of freedom. I would sit in the rocking chair, holding her tight until exhausted she would fall asleep. When our children were older and I could no longer hold them in such moments, they would be sent to their rooms. At times, I would have to hold the door closed to keep them in their rooms (such strong-willed children!) until exhausted they would rest or fall asleep. When that finally happened, I would enter the room and take her in my arms.

In such moments, my children wanted nothing to do with me. Being held only confirmed for them how they were in control even though what they thought was control was not helpful to anyone. I wonder when God has been that for me. When I have needed what I didn’t recognize I needed, fight against the “dreadful” arms of God? This verse has me reflecting on where I am in life today and what I may need from God that I am not yet ready and willing to receive. Am I fighting against the hands of God?

This same chapter in Hebrews also contains the words: “let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds”. Often others can see in me what I cannot see. I need other people alongside me to help me be more than I am.

Today’s readings: Isaiah 15-18; Hebrews 10