Author Archives: Talbot Davis

Note from the Editor: This week at Wesleyan Accent, as we scan, with grief, ongoing news from seeker-sensitive Protestant megachurches and Roman Catholic dioceses, we are reaching into our treasure trove of archives to reexamine different aspects of leadership. Our contributors over the years have written thoughtful, challenging reflections on leadership from a variety of perspectives. 

Those who know me well know that  I have made confessions like:

I’m better at leading the congregation than I am at leading the staff; or

I’m a disciplined person but not a very disciplined leader; or

I’m better at dealing with one or with 2,000 than I am with twelve.

To a certain extent all those things are true.  I will always more naturally incline towards pastoring and teaching than I will to leading and mentoring.

However, I have recently come to a realization that has helped me enormously in increasing my leadership ability when it comes to both the staff at Good Shepherd and younger clergy in the United Methodist Church.

It’s this:  take what has become second nature to me, put it on paper, and then share it verbally with team members.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

*I’ve done so many funerals and memorial services through the years that preparing eulogies has become second nature.

*I’ve knocked on enough doors of new movers into our area that the script for Bless This House has become second nature.

*I’ve had so many counseling sessions with men who are addicted to pornography that sharing with them the steps into recovery has become second nature.

*I’ve followed up with enough first-time guests that the process has become second nature.

*I’ve even done enough marital counseling that the agenda for a first session with a couple has become, you guessed it, second nature.

And my natural wiring is to store up that second nature information inside me – essentially, to approach ministry like I do a singles match in tennis!

All that is why through the years, on occasion I have become frustrated with team members or younger clergy who weren’t responding to those same ministry opportunities in ways I thought they should.

But then it hit me:  it’s not second nature to them.  You need to take the time to spell out all those years and all that stuff you have running around in your head and share it with them.

That process, in turn, has become great fun – especially if you have either staff members or younger clergy who have teachable spirits.   

So we’re having some smaller staff meetings that become verbatims (for those of you who remember Clinical Pastoral Education), shoring up counseling abilities.

It’s why we now share much more of the sermon development process.  It’s even why I am learning to take the time to show team members what is involved in the seemingly mundane task of composing hand-written notes to first-time guests.

Because in the big picture, mentoring is about turning what is second nature into a first priority. 

From Rev. Talbot Davis, a sermon from the songs of ascent.

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This post is the second in a sermon series by Rev. Talbot Davis on the Songs of Ascent. The first one can be read by clicking here.

Most people had some sort of celebration for the 4^th of July. Talk about “on the up and up” – many of you set off or at least looked at sparklers and explosions as they headed … well, up and up. But really, the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence are only meaningful because of the Continental Congress, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights that followed it (well, that and the winning the Revolutionary War part!). Without the establishing of a government and the ensuring of freedom that followed, the Declaration of Independence was just that – a Declaration. It’s the rights that followed which gave teeth to what got declared.

If you grew up in the USA – and even more so if you didn’t and had to learn this by intention and not by osmosis – you have been immersed in your rights. Both the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments) and those that that have been added to it grant the right to free speech, freedom of and from religion, right to a trial by jury, and to keep and bear arms. Later came civil rights regarding race, voting rights regarding gender and property, and more recently the debated marriage rights regarding the make-up of the couple.

If you’ve ever traveled to a developing country with an incomplete infrastructure and no environmental policy, you’ll be really glad the USA has a de facto right to clean air and garbage collection! Everywhere you look in this culture, we have rights, written and assumed, articulated and internalized. And Lord knows, with most folks you don’t want to trample on their rights in the least or you will quickly discover another deeply held American right: the right to sue!

Most of you right now are welling up with gratitude for me and my middle school civics lesson, so you’re welcome. But you might also be wondering: why in church? Why today? What does this have to do with anything?

I’m glad you asked because the intersection of Psalm 122 – this biblical song – and this national celebration really has everything to do with our faith. The cultural reality of our rights influences how we understand the spiritual reality of this psalm.

Now, to remind you: Psalm 122 is part of what is called “The Songs of Ascent,” a collection of 15 folk songs (Psalms 120-134) that people would sing as they trekked from their farms, towns, and villages up to Jerusalem three times a year for religious feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. They went those three times because the Jerusalem temple was the central religious location for all faithful Jews then. And Jerusalem was (and is) physically at one of the highest geographic places in all of Israel. So the journey from those towns, villages, and farms more literally was a climb. A gradual climb, but a relentless climb nonetheless. To go to Jerusalem with a crowd of fellow pilgrims was, literally, to go on the up and up.

And these 15 folk songs functioned almost like “We Shall Overcome” in the Civil Rights era or like “This Land Is Your Land” during the Dust Bowl era: folks actually sang them as they marched together on the up and up. It’s one of those sections of the Bible when you can see how vividly biblical writings had a life before they made it into the Bible. And Psalm 122, which appears to be sung when the journey is “up” and done is particularly enlightening in terms of rights – because of what goes on with the pronouns.

Yes, the pronouns.

Check it out in Psalm 122:1a:

I rejoiced with those who said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Can we acknowledge that on the Sunday after July 4^th, in churches all across “the fruited plain,” we preachers are simply glad when anyone comes to the house of the Lord? But note the “I” there, because you’re not going to see it again for a long time in this psalm.

And as the psalm writer begins his song, think of all his rights: it says it is “of David” which means either the king hisself wrote it or someone from his inner circle did. In either case, he is a VIP. He’s a Jew, a member of the chosen people. He’s travelled to Jerusalem, so he is religiously faithful if not all-the-way elite. And he has survived a long, hot, dangerous hike and so as the psalm begins it seems as if he has every right to put up his feet, pour himself a cold one, and, if he goes to church at all, at least have a service he likes!

But that’s not really what happens. Look at Psalm 122:1b-2:

“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
 Our feet are standing
in your gates, Jerusalem.

“I” has quickly become “our.” In the face of God, his individuality has been swallowed up into his community. The self has become merged into the whole. And then 122:3 is so interesting:

Jerusalem is built like a city
    that is closely compacted together.

It seems as the though the city was designed and built in such a way as to maximize community. The architecture and the urban planning reinforce the theology that the faith is teaching: me comes to life only as it is part of we. Architecture is shaping life, shaping religion.

And then look at 122:4:

That is where the tribes go up—
the tribes of the Lord—
to praise the name of the Lord
according to the statute given to Israel.

Tribes. Notice? It’s all about the group and not at all about the individual. It’s we who ultimately go up to Jerusalem, who head to church, not just a collection of me’s.

So let’s take stock of where we are and where we’re headed. Here’s a guy, either a king or a king’s assistant – in a time when they spoke of the divine rights of kings – who, after a long trek to Jerusalem, finds his me overwhelmed by the we of the community.

The “I” pronoun has disappeared in favor of “us” and “we.” Instead of asserting his rights – rights he was born into and rights he earned – the disappearing “I” pronoun shows he is instead relinquishing them. A psalm that could be about his personal religion instead becomes a song about our collective faith.

So here’s what we take from a king taking that approach.

Having the right doesn’t give you the right. 

Just because you have the right legally or even morally doesn’t mean you have to use it. Especially when it comes to worship and church and faith and relationships.  Having the right doesn’t give you the right.

Psalm 122 is the greatest example of how regular, consistent worship is the best preparation for life as a whole because in this collective experience of “having the right doesn’t give you the right” we actually learn how life beyond church works the best.

Because you could assert your me – which is the kind of thing in America we are brought up to do – but when you do that, God answers back with we. Let me show you what I mean and how it radiates out from this experience to all of life.

On a Sunday morning, for example, you have preferences. Some of you would prefer more gospel or urban gospel music. Others would prefer more classical, church-y music. Some prefer an edgier, louder, more churning sound (if you’re my age or older, for example, and you think we’re almost over the edge, we’re not. There are a lot of churches a lot louder and a lot darker than us). Some of you would prefer a pastor who preached verse-by-verse or wore a suit or even a clergy collar. But what I’m saying is that in the Good Shepherd community most of you who call Good Shepherd home are essentially “at home” – but only because you’re willing to sacrifice an area or two of your preferences. More of your taste.

For the vast majority of you, the me has surrendered to the we. You have the right to insist on everything done the way you like, but because of Christ’s blood and the ethos of Psalm 122, that doesn’t give you the right to assert everything you have.

It’s funny: sometimes people will tell me they chose Good Shepherd because it “fit” or it felt “comfortable.” That’s great. I love it. We don’t want to be difficult. But know what I’d love? If people told me, “I’m looking for a church where I will be uncomfortable. Stretched, poked, prodded.”

That’s the spirit of Psalm 122 – where those of us living in a me world are part of a we church. Having the right doesn’t give you the right. That’s why our mission talks about a living relationship with Jesus Christ and not a personal one. Now: you have a personal relationship with Jesus, but it can never stay personal. That means it’s private. Faith is lived on the up and up and together.

Having the right doesn’t give you the right.

Some years ago a man’s parting words to me as he left the church were, “I’m not getting fed.” That’s devastating for a simmering cauldron of insecurity like me. But you know what I’ve learned since? There have been five subsequent churches where, apparently, the same guy wasn’t “getting fed.” Oh. Sometimes the problem is not with the food; it’s with the eater. It’s an endless quest for a me church; a loop of my rights.

Having the right doesn’t give you the right. (And just once, someone should leave because “you’re not leading enough people to Christ!”)

Look at 122:5 again:

There stand the thrones for judgment,
the thrones of the house of David.

That means that we gather at this time and in this place to focus on the decisions that God has already made. We don’t come here so much for affirmation as for reformation. We celebrate God’s decisions that – even if they cramp our style – nevertheless save our lives.

It’s like this: picture a kid’s car seat. I remember those days: kids objecting, squirming, screaming, hating you for putting them in. And yet putting them in that car seat is the most loving thing you can do. It’s the same with the Commandments! We buck, we squirm, we question, we even hate God for them. But they are the ultimate act of protecting, preserving love. We have the right as Americans to post these or not, to follow these or not, but that doesn’t give us the right as Jesus’ people to do any of that.

Having the right in the USA doesn’t give you the right in the kingdom.

Having the right doesn’t give you the right.

All that is why worship is such preparation for life. If you realize we is bigger than me in your marriage – think you’d be a better mate? If you realize it’s not about your preferences but his purposes, think you might have more patience with your spouse? Your kids? Your co-workers? Speaking of work, what would it be like if that space was free of “right-asserting”? If no one said, “what gives you the right?!” Less infighting and backbiting and more kingdom building, no doubt.

Being glad that you’ve come to the house of the Lord (122:1) isn’t about generating phony enthusiasm for a Sunday morning; it’s about a deep satisfaction that in worship you get a weekly reminder that your preferences are secondary to his purposes, that even though you could doesn’t mean you will; that me is secondary to we, that the phrase “my rights” is seldom if ever on the lips of a Christian. You could say Psalm 122 is one of the least America-focused psalms ever…and one of the most kingdom-centered of them all.

Do you remember in May, in Garland Texas, a Mohammed cartoon art contest was held? And it was attacked by terrorists who were killed by security? No one shed many tears for those deaths. And Christians rightly pointed out that Jesus is ridiculed and blasphemed and cartoonized every day in religion classes across our land but no one protests via mass murder. So they pointed out a double standard and we were grateful that terrorists and not “artists” got killed. It was the kind of thing that as an American you could feel okay about. We can make cartoons of Mohammed if we want to – we have the right.

But what about as a member of the Kingdom? What does Colossians 4:5-6 say about purposely antagonizing a billion Muslims?

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

How can you invite people into a living relationship with your Savior when you first ridicule their prophet? Might those words, along with Psalm 122, say that having the right doesn’t give you the right?

And where better to experience that week after week than in the place and among the people where your preferences are submitted to his purposes and where your me turns into his we?

I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? 

In the church world, this is one of the more famous, more comforting lines in all the library of the Bible.  Especially when you say it in the classic, ancient King James Version: I lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?  I love that.  I’ve used it literally hundreds of times at bedsides in Charlotte area hospitals.  And as great as the words “whence” and “cometh” are, “hills” are even better arent’ they?  We get such a peaceful, hopeful, musical feeling when when hear the “hills” mentioned.  Why?  Julie Andrews of course! 

And even if we don’t think of that scene from that movie, our minds go to mountain vacations, weekends in Maggie Valley, morning mists rising over the trees, beautiful soundscapes.  We hear hills and it’s usually a place of peace, hope, beauty, and music.  That’s what we think of.

And that’s nice, that may be helpful beside a hospital bed, but it’s all wrong. What we hear today in “I lift up my eyes to the hills” and what Psalm 121’s first readers, listeners, and singers heard are two completely different things.  Completely.

See, the they I’m talking about are Jewish pilgrims from about 1000 – 400 BC.  Psalm 121 is part of what is called The Songs of Ascent, a collection of 15 folk songs (Psalms 120-134) that people would sing as they trekked from their farms, towns, and villages up to Jerusalem three times a year for religious feasts:  Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.  They went those three times because the Jerusalem temple was the central religious location for all faithful Jews then.  And Jerusalem was (and is) physically at one of the highest georgraphic places in all of Israel.  So the journey from those towns, villages, and farms more literally was a climb.  A gradual climb but a relentless climb nonetheless. To go to Jerusalem with a crowd of fellow pilgrims was, literally, to go on the up and up.

And these 15 folk songs functioned almost like We Shall Overcome in the Civil Rights era or like This Land Is Your Land during the Dust Bowl era:  folks actually sang them as they marched together on the up and up.  One of those sections of the Bible when you can see how vividly biblical writings had a life before they made it into the Bible.  So these people, these ancient pilgrims with their hiking boots and their backpacks on, with their carabiners nearby in case the terrain gets really rough, with their bottled water hitched to their belts, they looked up at the hills…

…and they do not see Julie Andrews.  They see ominous storm clouds.  They see temptations. They see danger.  Because all those pilgrims who are looking, marching, and singing know people who had ventured up those same mountains headed to Jerusalem and never returned.  The route was notorious for bandits and robbers . . . like the very reason that Jesus could tell the story of the Good Samaritan is that it made sense to his audience that a guy travelling alone that way got beaten, robbed, and left for dead.  That’s what Psalm 121’s pilgrims saw when they looked at those hills.

But there’s something else they saw, something more prominent from “them thar hills”:  idol worship.  Over and over in the history books of the Old Testament we read references to the “high places” – nooks and crannies in the hill country where Israel’s pagan neighbors (Canaanites, Jebusites…) built and worshiped at shrines to Baal and it’s vital to know (in case you didn’t) that the people made Baal out of wood. A god they made.  But here’s what else was part of Baal worship at all those shrines in their gods and goddesses, gods like Asherah, Molech, and, most famously, Baal:  temple prostitutes.  And how you worshiped him was through sexual intercourse with the prostitutes which supposedly guaranteed the fertility of your crops and your family.  So any Jewish guy – married or single – who has been told all his life “you shall have no other gods” or “make no graven images” looked up at those hills and saw temptation. Excitement. Allure.  Really, the journey of ascents didn’t have a string of roadside hotels like we would today, but instead a line of sacred brothels.  Each one with a “come here” gesture.  Cunning, baffling, and powerful.  That’s what they saw when they looked up at the hills.  Not Julie Andrews, believe me.  And what they heard was not the sound of music…

Thieves and idols, ominous and alluring all at the same time.  Really, they looked up, and between their village and the city on a hill they had to navigate all the lies.  Lies about people – as if robbing is the best we can do – and lies about God – he is something we make and  manipulate, we worship him with extramarital sex.  The entire journey was a minefield of lies.  One lie after another.

Huh.  Lies are so enticing, aren’t they? You may not be headed hiking today but you are on the pilgrimage of life.  You may be headed on the up and up – or the down and down – and you are confronted with the lure of the lies.  For someone it’s the lie that what your wife can’t provide for you, your girlfriend will.  Or what your husband can’t give you, your boyfriend can.  The lie that your impulses must be indulged.  Now.  If you feel it, you need to do it, and the quicker the better.  The lie that all religions are essentially the same and that in the end God will be like Santa Claus and so good people will go to heaven and bad people won’t.  The lie that your highest calling in life is to be true to yourself.  The lie that one more hit of the cocaine will get you through the night.  The lie that it’s your money, you earned it, and you can decide what to do with it.  The lie that if she’s not making me happy, I’ll find someone else who will.  It’s the lure of the lies and every one of them, every single one of them, overpromises and underdelivers.

And about now you are thinking, “Whew! You got a lot out of I lift up my eyes to the hills…!

But look next.  The psalm singers look to those hills and ask a penetrating question: is help coming from the gods of those hills?  Will Molech or Asherah or Baal come to the rescue?  No.  The Lord – not made, but the Maker, 121:2 tells us – he is the source of help (and verse 2 is the source of the language in the Creed).

My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth

And then these promises in 121:3-4:

He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
  indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

Slumber? Sleep? And most of you are like, what?  Everyone knows God doesn’t sleep!

Oh no!  This is an “in your face” to Baal!  Remember Elijah in I Kings 18:27? Actually, Baal was notorious among Baal worshipers for sleeping and for being very difficult to wake up!  If Baal is in REM sleep, don’t even bother. The world’s first narcoleptic god?  So Psalm 121 is the Lord saying, “Nope, not me.  That other guy?  Yep.  Me.  I don’t sleep.”

And then 121:5-6:

The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
    the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

Sun, moon.  Huh?  Looking for hearts and clovers?  No, it’s actually more smackdown against the false gods.  The same people who had fertility gods (Baal) had sun gods and moon gods.  And actually, they believed that the moon could make you sick, a lunar fever, which is where we get the word – ready for this? – lunacy.

And then these concluding promises of 121:7-8:

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
  the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

So the pattern is so clear when you know what you are looking for:  lies, rebuke, lies, rebuke, lies, idol smackdown, promise, embrace.

The song is much less suitable for hospital beds and much ready for a wrestling match between competing gods and differing worldviews.  It is as if every time a pilgrim hikes on the up and up and resists those lies, avoids the sacred bordello, God responds by guarding and protecting from enduring harm.  The pilgrim won’t sprain his ankle, undergo heat stroke or even get lunar (lunacy) fever.  So here’s the deal as you go on the up and up:

When you get good at DETECTING lies, you’ll discover God is great at PROTECTING you.

When you’re on the up and up, I so want you to identify the luring lies for what they are in your life and also to know that the heavy weaponry of the truth is the best defense.  I want this church to be full of lie detectors!  God actually uses truth as his protection for you.  Your internal lies are so destructive because so many of you have self-talk that is full of “I can’t,” “I won’t,” or “I’ll never.”  No!  The truest thing about you is that you are loved!  You have been declared to be of eternal value!

Because again, lies can be so enticing.  Like 22% of Christians believe in reincarnation, as if as you journey up you hear the “come here” beckon of Hinduism or Buddhism so you just pick it off the tree and add it to your Christianity.  Or even the thought that nature is divine.  It sounds nice but it has no intellectual or spiritual staying power.

And it really got to me thinking about talk – movies like Bruce Almighty or Oh God  may be lighthearted fun but the net result is that they trivialize God.  As if he really is an elderly George Burns.  And we buy right into it, at least subconsciously.  It’s the same with the book The Five People You Meet In Heaven.  God comes out like a great big version of us.  I love Tony Evans’ defintion of idolatry: when your idea of God supercedes God’s revelation of himself.

When you get good at DETECTING lies, you’ll discover God is great at PROTECTING you.

And “guarding” is part of that promise.  Note that word “watch” – it’s used six times in the NIV!  Except when you know the word, it’s not “observes.”  It’s “preserves.”  Tends, gardens, guards.   In fact, it’s the same word used when Adam is tending the Garden of Eden.  So God isn’t watching you, helpless and mute, while you try to navigate the minefield of lies all around you. Instead, it’s a protective watch, a guarding, preserving, intervening.  You have been protected from yourself – because aren’t we all our own worst enemies?  — way more than you know.

It’s like in January 2003 when Terry Drier capsized in the Caribbean.  Twenty hours in the water and he became convinced he was going to die.  Yet a helicopter spotted him and a warship headed to battle in the Persian Gulf stopped to pick him up.  On the way to battle, and they picked up one guy. Because one guy mattered.  And the name of the ship?  The USS Comforter.

Hey – one of the truths of God is that he is the Father of Compassion and the God of All Comfort.  And that’s what it’s like.  You’re floundering, you’re alone, but God intervenes.  He gets you arrested. He puts you in rehab.  He connects you in a LifeGroup. He gets you on a ServeTeam and you discover that in reaching out your issues get a whole new perspective.  You’re exchanging lies for truth and God’s protecting your direction.

When you get good at DETECTING lies, you’ll discover God is great at PROTECTING you.

But what of these promises here in Psalm 121?  No sprained ankle, no heat stroke, no lunar fever?  Hear this:  you will sprain your ankle.  You will have difficulties.  You will have trauma.  But what Psalm 121 promises is that as you anchor yourself, not to your truth but to his, as you are not true to yourself but you are true to God, none of the bad things that happen to you has separating power between you and God.  The Maker is the Protector…not necessarily in the immediate but always in the ultimate!

When you get good at DETECTING lies, you’ll discover God is great at PROTECTING you.

Back in Monroe, one of the most beloved guys in the church ever was Fred Looney.  He got saved at an advanced age and as long as we knew him he had emphysema.  He came to church with his oxygen canisters.  And after being part of us for about three years, the disease ran its course and it took him.  It was a difficult funeral, but a funeral balanced with joy for his salvation. Not long after that funeral a man at the church came up to me and said, “I hate we won’t be seeing Fred at church anymore.  But he’ll be seeing us at church, won’t he?”

Yes he will. When you get good at detecting lies, you’ll discover God is great at protecting you – now and forevermore.

Solutionists is one series where I know exactly where I was when I first had the idea. As some of you know our Zoar Road Campus has a Zoar Road Club which is full of recovery meetings, many of which are open to the public even if you are not an alcoholic. And I drop by periodically just to show that community how much Good Shepherd loves what they are about.

Anyway, several months ago I was in one of these meetings – probably 40 people there – admiring the raw spirituality of the environment, when during the sharing time a man says, “We don’t have a drinking PROBLEM. We have a drinking SOLUTION. We’ve got all kinds of problems – marriage, parents, self-esteem, and money – and what we all have in common in this room is that our SOLUTION to those problems was to drink them away!” And I thought, “I may have just heard the single most brilliant insight into anything, anywhere in my life.” So I ran out to the car, wrote it down, thinking to myself, “that will preach!” and now six months later, here we are!

And that’s also why the first message in Solutionists is called “Problemists.” Because I want to jump from AA into scripture and back into our lives because in the big picture it is fascinating to me how much we confuse our problems and our solutions. This entire series, from faux solutions to real ones, comes from the best memoir in the biblical library, Nehemiah. Yes! A memoir! Written in the first person, sort of selective with details, and, as we are going to see, the facts are arranged in such a way as to put Nehemiah in a good light. More than that: as the book opens up, the main action, the scenario that makes up the dilemma to be solved, has already occurred. It’s like the biggest action took place off-stage.

Here’s the deal: it’s 445 BC. And about 90 years earlier, the children of Israel have returned home from exile in Babylon (more on that in a bit) to a bombed out, burned up city. Jerusalem has become their city of ruins. See, way back in 587 BC, the Jews had been conquered by Babylon and the best and brightest of its citizenry was chained and transported to Babylon to work as slaves. That lasted for 70 years. And then the Persians (Iran) defeated Babylonia in 539 BC and miraculously let the Jews return home to Jerusalem; they didn’t have the resources or the manpower or the wherewithal to rebuild the city well. By the time Nehemiah opens in 445 BC they had started a reclamation project but it was poorly done and the city looked like one of these sad Syrian places you see on TV today: burned up, hollowed out, devoid of both leadership and hopefulness.

Now: all this is not Nehemiah’s particular problem. Look at 1:1: “The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa…” – Nehemiah 1:11 gives more indication – “I was cupbearer to the king.”

See, he is well over 1,000 miles from his homeland – and he’s probably never lived there anyway – serving in the court of the king of Persia. He’s next to the seat of power, living in the lap of luxury. He doesn’t need to bother with any of these problems. But then he gets a report from the front lines in 1:2-3:

“Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, ‘Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.’”

Wall, broken. Gates, burned. People in great trouble and disgrace. So: 587 destroyed, exiled. 539 returned. 90 years later, 445 BC, still in shambles. Why? What got the people of God out from under the protection of God and into this kind of situation in the first place? Why are there very lives broken and burned?

Ah . . . do you remember how I said so much of the stage-setting action in Nehemiah occurs off stage? In this case, in the Old Testament books of 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings? Well, Nehemiah summarizes it well as part of his prayer in 1:6-7:

^“Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.”

What was that? We have not obeyed the commands. Well, do you remember the first of those commands? No other gods. And yet, if you know the history and you remember Nehemiah’s stage is set off-stage, you realize that throughout the Old Testament, from the earliest days to the latest, from the North to the South, what was the very thing the children of Israel did? Worshipped other gods! Baal (some of you remember the Southern pronunciation of Jezebel), Ashterah, Molech. They thought that by worshipping these other gods along with their Lord that it would give them safety with the neighbors. (Neighbors be like, “Let’s don’t attack! They worship our god too!). They also thought that worshipping the other gods would bail them out in case their own god didn’t come through. And, frankly, some of the men involved wanted the sexual excitement that came from Baal worship, as that usually involved temple prostitutes. So they suffered from fear, insecurity, illicit desire, and their solution throughout their history as a people was to run after little tin gods.

And so I see the predicament that Israel is in – broken wall, burned gate, hollow spirits – and I realize from Nehemiah’s words why that happened and it hits me: they didn’t have an idolatry problem; they have an idolatry solution. Their problems had to do with fear, insecurity, unpopularity, lack of trust, and excess libido. But the solution they sought is the thing that led them into exile and then lingering shame upon their return.

And in 2015, not much has changed. Lord, I had a sick day awhile back and was just feeling rotten – because you know getting sick means you’re a failure at ministry, right? – and, anyway, at the end of the day I binged on a bag of Gluten-Free Sweet Potato chips. But now I know: I didn’t have a chip problem. I had a chip solution to my larger problem of irrational insecurity! And I know that some of the females here – I know this because you tell me – bounce from relationship to relationship to relationship. Looking for something in a guy that’s always elusive. But I want you to realize now that you don’t have a guy problem. You have a guy solution! Or guys who are addicted to time on the internet – and I know this because you tell me! – you don’t have a porn problem; you have a porn solution! Goodness, some of the people here who move from spouse to spouse to spouse, hoping the next one will be “right”; you don’t have a marriage problem, you have a marriage solution. Those of you who cut…cutting isn’t your problem, it’s your solution. Or you who shop compulsively…it’s not a shopping problem, it’s a shopping solution.

And then, for some of you here, it’s that way you substitute a church or a pastor for a living relationship with Jesus Christ. And you don’t have a church problem; you have a church solution – and it’s a failed attempt at what only the Lord of the church can provide. Now: in all those I listed above, I can’t for sure name the real problem. Most often, they have to do with parenting issues, personal insecurity, or, most powerfully, the subtle thought that God is not good (that’s why we choose sin! We don’t think God is as good as the sin!). Yet even if I don’t know the exact problem, I know 100% for sure that the solution you’ve located for that problem ain’t working! Whether you are my friend at an open AA meeting or you’re living on your computer or you’re drowning in credit card debt.

The solution is the problem. You’ve become a problemist.

And that’s what Nehemiah is realizing about himself and the people he is going to represent. I love the wording of 1:7A: “We have acted very wickedly toward you.”

That lets you know that acting out is really acting at – in this case, acting at God. But look where Nehemiah goes next in his prayer:

“Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’”

Verse 8 begins with “Remember”! Can you imagine being that nervy with the Lord? Remember what you said, Lord! I hope you haven’t forgotten something, Lord! And then 1:9 contains some of the most glorious language in Scripture: “but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.” I love that. Even if they at the farthest horizon – which Nehemiah was as he prays; 1,000 miles from Jerusalem in Susa! – God will bring them home. But the farthest they could wander from the presence of God – because of insecurity, fear, libido and the false solutions – is still not too far from God’s loving grasp. From his welcome home. They’re never too far and it’s never too late.

And, Lord, it says everything to those for whom the solution is now the problem. You’re never too far. It’s never too late. Your solution may have made you feel that your walls are broken and your gate is burnt and that you are beyond the farthest horizons…but no. The promise God had given to Nehemiah and the Jews is the promise that still stands today. The faux solutions you’ve sought will never have the final word. Because here’s what we get from Nehemiah’s story off-stage and then his appearance here in Nehemiah 1: When you admit the solution is the problem, God surrounds you with his promises.

Because look at the words Nehemiah ascribes to himself and his people: GATHER, REDEEMED, SUCCESS, FAVOR. It all hinges on his “Step 1” of verse six: confession.        We’ve blown it. Our solution is really our problem. And God answers back with this deluge of promises.
It just makes me think of that friend of mine who after years of abusing alcohol stopped drinking. And he said, “Wow! I feel stuff now! I used to numb it all. Now I feel it all. Everything I feel isn’t always good but it is always better than numb.” Yep.

     When you admit the solution is the problem, God surrounds you with his promises.

Or it’s even like Nehemiah’s name. Do you know what it means? “The Lord comforts.” Yep, not our fake self, not the one whose solutions are the problems, but our real selves who lift up all our flaws to the Flawless King.

     When you admit the solution is the problem, God surrounds you with his promises.

So where is it today? You know. Where is it that God is dealing with you, letting you know that your solution is in fact your problem? Where have your solutions given you a broken wall and a burned gate? And where is he encouraging you to dig deeper, to peel back the onion of your own psyche, to see what the real problem is? Based on my experience, it’s usually something to do with mom and dad, something to do with a warped view of how others think about you, or something to do with your sneaking suspicion that God is not really, truly good. That he is not authentically enough. Sometimes our inability to embrace and celebrate how thoroughly we are loved makes us move on to idols. We can’t accept God’s tenacious grace. Oh, if that’s you, just allow yourself to be surrounded in his promises.

It’s why I love that Christ-centered treatment center in New Jersey where the residents do not identify themselves by their addiction (“I’m John and I’m an alcoholic.”) but by their Savior: “I’m John and I’m a blood-bought child of God who already has victory over drugs.” That’s a promise worth savoring.

Speaking of which, let these promises surround you now…

It happened again a few months ago.

A young man made an appointment with me at the church, came into my office at the expected time, sat down in his chair, glanced around the room, nervous as a cat, and began to speak.

What emerged over the next 15 minutes was a tale of escalating addiction that led to discovery on the part of his wife and with it the threat of expulsion from his home.

What kind of addiction?

The most common kind clergy in the 21st Century face in their role as pastors:  pornography.

You’ll note that I opened by stating that “it happened again last week.”  And the again is not accidental…the odds are that when a man in our church makes an appointment to speak with me, the presenting issue is compulsive use of pornography that has in fact made his life unmanageable.  It impacts men of all ethnicities, nationalities, and even ages – ranging from adolescents to seasoned citizens.

It sometimes leads to trouble with the law.  It often leads to difficulty with the family.  It always results in disconnection from the self.

The rise of the internet has created a perfect storm for growing numbers of men to become addicted to looking at and masturbating to pornographic images.  It is available.  It is anonymous.  I suspect no other generation of men – or their pastors – had such a collision of forces that are the same time both irresistible and destructive.

So what is a pastor to do when faced with this kind of epidemic?

Well, through trial and error at Good Shepherd Church, we have devised a protocol for those times when porn comes into a pastor’s office.  The protocol stems not only from the frequency with which the addiction comes calling but also my familiarity with and appreciation for Twelve Step Programs.  What you will read below is a system we talk about on-staff, these are notes we distribute internally, and it is a process that we have seen God use to bring men to new places of wholeness and healing.

Specifically, our pastoral counseling protocol revolves around three elements:  spirituality, therapy, and community.

Spirituality

When a man comes to my office seeking help with his addiction to pornography, that first meeting always includes healing prayer.

While the addiction may have begun as moral failure, it most cases it has escalated to the point of uncontrollable behavior.  He no longer looks at porn because he wants to but because he is overcome with a compulsion that makes him feel he has to.

I always affirm the man’s courage in coming to me, assure him that I am not going to place another layer of guilt on him (he usually feels enough of that already), and let him know that his current impasse is, at the core, a spiritual issue.  He has substituted a false god for the true one – after all, it’s not accidental that so many excavated idols are sexualized figurines.  Internet porn is simply a modern manifestation of an ancient idolatry.

With that awareness, I will often anoint my friend with oil, lay hands on his shoulders, and pray Jesus’ healing power over his addiction.  At some point in that spoken prayer, I will have the man pray out loud for himself.  I believe it is vital for the man to own his addiction before God and to claim the healing that is available in Christ.  Whether it’s porn or alcohol or gambling or gluttony, I contend that God won’t do for you what he needs to do with you.

Community

Sadly, all too many pastors, church, and addicts would regard the meeting described above as the end of the matter.  As in, “it’s been prayed for, I’ve been delivered, so that’s it.”

My friends in the world of Recovery call that a “spiritual bypass.”  Meaning: many addicts long for a one-stop, one-step prayer miracle – a ZAP! – that heals them without going through the difficult work of recovery.

And while deliverance from porn addiction may on occasion happen in that fashion, it is much more common for healing to occur in and through the type of community one finds in a Twelve Step Program.  So in the counseling session I’ve been describing, I will connect the struggling man with either a Sex Addicts Anonymous or a Sexaholics Anonymous group meeting in our area.

To make that connection more personal, I typically contact one of several men I know in our church who are in SAA or SA and ask them to ensure that the new person makes it to his first meeting.  Those in recovery have proven remarkably eager to help others begin working the steps.

Once in a recovery group, an addict discovers that a) he is not alone; b) he needs to be restored to sanity; and c) healing emerges from shared struggle much better than from isolated toil.  I enjoy watching church friendships flourish that I know began at SAA meetings.

Therapy

The recovery community calls sexual addiction “cunning, baffling, and dangerous.”  And so it is.

So the battle against it requires the heavy artillery of individual therapy.  We are fortunate in the Charlotte area to have a number of the nation’s leading therapeutic experts in the area of sex addiction, and so Good Shepherd keeps a ready list of referrals.

There are many, many forces at work that drive a man to sexual and pornographic addiction, and it generally takes the skill of an experienced therapist to uncover root causes and to craft coping strategies.

In cases of financial hardship, we underwrite up to five sessions of therapy.

We firmly believe that all three elements – spirituality, community, therapy – are indispensable.

I have met men who were either too private to join a community or too proud to enter therapy, and the results was a partial attempt at recovery.  And, as the Twelve Steppers remind us, “half measure availed us nothing.”

Pastoral Follow Up

I do my best to maintain contact with the guys who have trusted me with their stories and their struggles.  So, via text message, email, or phone call, I will periodically check-in with those under my pastoral care.  How you holding up?  How much sobriety do you have?  Are you making your meetings?

Without fail, the men appreciate being remembered and known.

And then when I get an email like the one below from the same guy who I mentioned in the opening of this article, it’s all worth it:

Dear Talbot,

I just want you to know how much this journey of healing has meant to me.  I feel free for the first time in my life.  Thank you for getting me in that group, thanks for (my therapist), and thanks for the prayers.

I thought about bringing a tool box up here as a prop today.  Except I don’t have a tool box.  Why?  Because anytime I get some tools to try to build something, fix something, or assemble something, it doesn’t work, I get frustrated, words come out of my mouth that shouldn’t come out of any preacher’s mouth, and I throw the tools across the room and quit.  Me + tools = an epic fail.

We’ve got those, right?  Or in track and field:

Or on wedding days:

There is even an entire website devoted to epic fails.  There are cases these days where it seems like people’s epic fails, the worst moments of their lives, are lived out on a stage for all the world to see.

And that’s certainly the case for a man in the Bible known as Mark, also known as John Mark.  We’re going to get to his reference in Colossians chapter four in a few minutes, but can we back up first?  Probably 20 years in time and eight books in the Bible. You see, in the book of Acts – the history book of the church in its first 50 years or so – Mark has been in the company of Paul and Barnabas.  Barnabas is in fact his cousin; they are related by blood.  And it looks for all the world like Mark is the assistant, the armor bearer, to these two higher profile missionaries. And at this stage of the book of Acts and in the journey of Paul, the Gospel is spreading rapidly.  And leadership in the early church, as Acts tells it, is slowly transitioning from Peter to Paul. Anyway, about midway through a long journey through the Mediterranean world, after leaving the island of Cyprus, the three of them arrive back on the mainland of what is today Turkey.  In a place called Pamphylia.  And look what happens in 13:13: “From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia. There John left them and returned to Jerusalem.”

John, John Mark, leaves.  Disappeared.  Abandoned. Walked away. AWOL.  Why?  We don’t know. All we have is the barest of hints.  It had been a long journey over rough terrain – he could have been tired or sick.  The mountains could have been too difficult to navigate.  He could have had frustration over the way the Gospel was received – some said “yes” to Jesus while most said “no.”  Maybe he was just homesick.

Or possibly the text has a clue embedded in it.  Look again at 13:13: “Paul and his companions.”  Ah, Paul is evidently the new leader! He is in charge!  Gone from beta to alpha!  There has been a transition in leadership and perhaps John called Mark didn’t like his new preacher! So rather than minister in unfamiliar terrain with a leader he didn’t fully trust, John called Mark bolted.  Pamphylia or bust and busted.  The going got tough and he got gone.  His epic fail.  And because it is in the pages of scripture it has been lived out on the world stage for centuries. Pamphylia.

And you know, we all have a Pamphylia.  That place. That day.  That set of circumstances that led to our epic fail.  Even our desertion.

For someone here it was that job you had that you loved and you blew it.  You lost it.

Or it’s that athletic competition and you choked.  I know what I’m talking about here.  My senior year in college, our tennis team played Duke and my particular opponent was injured.  Had a brace from his thigh to his ankle.  Could barely walk, much less run.  It was a match I could not lose!  And I found a way to lose.  Total choke.  And at the end of that day, we lost to Duke by how much?  One match. Mine.  Epic fail in front of a whole lot of folks.

Or your Pamphylia was the day you walked out on your marriage.  And at the time it seemed justified, it made sense, and now you want it all back.

Or even for a few of you, it’s church.  Like Mark, you didn’t like a new leader at church and so you left and now, sitting here you are realizing, “hey! That other guy’s not so bad!”

John called Mark had his Pamphylia, you’ve had yours and so the question becomes: how do we navigate the way up from and out of our epic fail?  How can we separate that event from our identity, to ensure that one epic fail doesn’t become five?  Because if Mark, if you or if I, stay in Pamphylia, the hero we have hiding within will stay there.

Because something happened in John called Mark’s life in the aftermath of the epic fail at Pamphylia.  Fast forward just a few years and a couple of chapters later in Acts.  Paul and Barnabas are preparing for another missionary trip and deciding who will be their Sherpas.  And Paul has not forgotten Mark’s AWOL; Barnabas, perhaps because of family ties, has.  Look at Acts 15:36-40:

Sometime later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord.

Whoa!  Repercussions of the epic fail continue to reverberate.  Personal failure becomes a community issue; it becomes a source of painful division.  Maybe you’ve been on both ends of that: your failure impacted more than you and caused others to divide or, more commonly, you as parents have had division, discord, and even separation over the best way to deal with the epic fail(ures) of your children.

And if Acts 15 was the end of the story of John called Mark and his impact on the early church, it would be a pretty sad thing.  Except remember Colossians, the letter that got us into this mess?  Twenty years later, something major has evidently happened; look at 4:10: “My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)”

Paul is imprisoned and his former deserter is now, improbably, his trusted comforter.  There is even a chance that he will come with Tychicus to deliver the letter; in that case, Paul refers to the special instructions, which must have said something like, “you’ve heard he was a deserter. Now he’s a comforter. You can trust him because his Pamphylia experience didn’t define him; it refined him.”  Don’t mistreat him; fully trust him.

Something has happened in John called Mark’s life.  And then Paul just confirms that all over the place in 2 Timothy 4:11: “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.”

Whoa!  Something has really happened. The deserter is not only tolerated but he is pivotal to the whole endeavor. Pamphylia doesn’t have the final word in his life.

And then one more. This one from Peter, now, not Paul.  Look what Peter says at the end of his letter: “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark.”

“My son, Mark.”  Intimate, familiar, mentor and mentee.  Something has happened, some several things more likely, to make Pamphylia and its failure be but a comma and not a period in John called Mark’s life.  Something has enabled this man to absorb the lessons of his epic fail and to enter a season of productivity.  He’s not stuck in Pamphylia; he’s sent into faithfulness. And so what happened?

I think it’s two guys: Paul and Peter.  And knowing them and gauging by words they use in Scripture, it seems they both spoke truth into John Mark’s epic fail.  Knowing Paul, he no doubt put it all on the table, set the record straight, told the truth.  Like the man in Monroe said to me after I absolutely blew a meeting, “you shot yourself in the foot tonight; you ought to make it right.”  Paul must have been like, “you know the fallout from your failure, right?  Help me understand why you did it and then tell me what you’ve learned.”  And Peter, how did he go about it?  “My son.”  Tender encouragement.  He brought comfort.  Like the friend I have who periodically will say to me “You’re a good man,” especially when I feel like anything but.  But you need both.  A Paul and a Peter.  Someone who will confront and another who will comfort.  It takes that balance of truth and grace to get someone to move beyond their epic fail and into effective service.

So I’ve got to ask you:  who speaks truth into your epic fail?  Who do you trust to give the hard truths?  Who is there who can provide gentle encouragement?  As time passes between you and your Pamphylia, who speaks truth into your epic fail?  See, if you have only rebuke then you will likely become static.  Paralyzed in failure.  But if you have only comfort, you’ll likely just be enabled to do the same epic fail again because you never had any consequences.  So are you self-aware enough to hear the hard word?  And have you freed yourself of the self-loathing so you can receive the gentle word?  Correction. Comfort. The comfort that comes from correction and the correction implied in the comfort.  Who speaks truth into your epic fail?

I hope and I pray you all have teachable spirits and open ears in the aftermath of your epic fails.  That once you succeed at that first job of locating the one who will speak truth into your epic fail, you have success in that second one as well – receiving what you’re told.  Likely accepting responsibility and embracing opportunity. Who speaks truth into your epic fail?

I believe in this so much in part because I saw Leslie Steiner’s column in which she explained why she stayed in an abusive marriage for as long as she did and then why she got out.  And among the reasons she got out was this:  “Two police officers matter-of-factly informed me that if I stayed with my husband, they would find me dead in my living room one day.” Wow, that’s Paul – two of them! – on that thin blue line.  Any road to recovery necessarily makes a pit stop at rebuke.

But by the same token when Christian author Larry Crabb was a young teen in church, he stood and delivered a prayer one Sunday in church.  It was a disaster.  Words wrong, cadence wrong, got so caught up in the moment that he even got the prayers wrong. Epic fail in his first attempt at ministry! Yet at the end of service that day, an older man named Jim Dunbar approached him and  said, “Larry there’s one thing I want you to know.  Whatever you do for the Lord, I’m behind you 1000%.”  Those words had power; they resonated with Larry and have stayed with his soul. Who speaks truth into your epic fail?

It’s just so important with whom you surround yourself and how well you listen.  Even on Sundays!  You need a Paul who will challenge and a Peter who will comfort and sometimes they are in the same person but not always. But the hero hiding in you best comes out when it is called out by other folks in the aftermath of the epic fails in your life.  If you walked out on a marriage, who speaks truth into your epic fail? If the only one who keeps losing jobs is you, who speaks truth into your epic fail?  If sports are the thing, who speaks truth into your epic fail?  If it’s even leaving one spiritual leader for another, who speaks truth into your epic fail?

Because like I have been saying, something happened in the life of John called Mark.  Remember how I said he didn’t stay in his Pamphylia; he didn’t allow failure to define him?  And he because useful in comforting ministry to imprisoned Paul, and Peter came to regard him as a son.  Well, we know from church history that in the time John called Mark spent with Peter, he took notes, heard stories, internalized what the apostle was telling him.  And that’s why one of the four Gospels bears the indelible imprint of Peter’s story.  Which one? The Gospel of Mark.  He goes from one who abandons to one who proclaims! From deserter to author! From AWOL to MVP!

He becomes someone not known so much for his Pamphylia as for his proclamation.  Why? How?

Who speaks truth into your epic fail?

He got confronted by Paul, comforted by Peter, and the rest is, literally, history

Imagine what God can do with all your epic fails.

I brought a little collection of some things I love today; things about which I know the phrase has come out of my mouth:  “I love that!”  First, of course, is my cottage cheese and my Nutrageous bars.  In bulk!  Then my Maxima which is comfortable, quick, and reliable and suits me.  And here is this of Roger Federer, on whom my wife claims I have a man crush but it’s really just an appreciation for the surreal way he plays the sport that shaped my life. And finally, my edger, which just ensures my yard has the neat edges and trims that I, well, love.  But you know what I noticed about all these?  I spent a lot of time pursuing, purchasing, following each of these things, but none of them love me back.  In the grand scheme of things they’re kind of trivial and they have never once returned the love I have showered on them.

You probably have some of the same thing, mostly harmless.  Maybe it’s the TV show you can’t miss – for Julie, it’s “Family Feud,” but only if Steve Harvey is the host.  But you may spend a lot of time pursuing fantasy football, a vacation condo at the beach, the iPhone 6.  But really, think about it: none of those love you back.

Sometimes things we love turn a bit more sinister.  The comfort we value so much that it hardens our hearts to ministry.  The attention of that pretty young woman at work; the eye contact with the strapping young man. The nice buzz of alcohol, the manic energy of cocaine.  Those things, some of them trivial but most of them devastating, never love you back; they just demand more of you.

Something tells me that’s what happened to Demas, the anti-hero hero.  Here’s the deal. In Colossians 4 – the source of all our hidden heroes – Pastor Paul refers to him with complete neutrality in 4:14: “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.”But this is the second of three New Testament references to Demas.  And taken chronologically, the three references paint the most interesting picture.  Look at Philemon 1:24: “And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers.”

Whoa!  He’s not only a “fellow worker” but look who he is hanging with!  Just the all-time titans of the Christian faith.  It’s like he is part of a posse that hangs around the celebrity pastors of the day! He has access.  So clearly, at this stage, in terms of his living relationship with Jesus Christ, judging by his LifeGroup, he is moving to maturity!

You might have been at a place like that or, better yet, you might be there now!  You know the right songs, your friends are good, your prayers are getting answered, you can understand the Bible, and all is right in your world. First reference.

But at the second reference, things change a bit. We read in Colossians 4:14 again: “Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.” Demas is the only one on the Colossians 4 list who simply gets his name with no description.  Like,“oh, meet Talbot. Bleh.” And then the third in the chronology at Second Timothy 4:10: “For Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.”

From inner circle believer to AWOL deserter.  And you know what fact about Second Timothy I can’t get out of my mind here?  Second Timothy is Paul’s “death row” letter. And when you’re on death row – or in hospice – you’re not really concerned with trivial pursuits, are you?  Paul wasn’t dwelling on trivialities; he was dialed into eternities. That’s why it was particularly devastating for Demas to desert him.  Because look at what Demas did:  he loved this present world – its comfort, safety, and reputation – and in so doing ignored the next one. That contrast is implied in Paul’s wording.  And Paul, who because he is on death row is dwelling on eternities more than at any other time in his life, knows something deadly:  Demas has sacrificed what is eternal on the altar of what is trivial.  He has traded the assurance of the next world for privilege in this one.

And you know why that is such a bad deal?  This:

Everything we own – from my Maxima to your iPhone; from my edger to your Lake Wylie yacht – will one day be junk.  All of it.  This is where it will end.  It’s temporary and because it’s temporary it is so very trivial. You love and pursue all this stuff that proves trivial – and oh, by the way, never loves you back – and it just demands more.

I bet we have some Demas’s here (I said Demases).  Some of you got there accidentally. Others by design.  You are so dialed into this world that you’ve never really given much of a thought to the next one.

Did you know, for example, that five times as many people in the United States worry about their insurance than worry about the possibility of hell?  And so some of you are realizing with a sense of dread that after being swept up in the early emotion of following Jesus a few years ago, you have now crept away from him. But others have more of a sense of pride about it.  You tried the Gospel, found it lacking, and you know you’re currently having a lot more fun that those guys who are taking it so seriously.  And I confess: that’s alluring. Attractive. So much easier to not believe in this stuff you can’t see and you’ll never prove, so why not just pursue what you can?

Yet for those in that place, let me tell you:  a lot of you will come back to believing in a few years …just with bodies buried in the back yard. And I see so much of my preaching as regret prevention.  I just want you to see now, today, before it’s too late, that the whole world is a giant iPhone 6:  it does not, will not, cannot love you back.  Its only purpose is to get you to want iPhone 7!

Because here’s what Paul knew as he observed Demas’ trivial pursuits.  He (Paul) had been pursued.  Chased. Caught. Changed from murderer to missionary, from persecutor to preacher.  He knew where Demas’ desertion would ultimately land him: in the dustbin of eternity.  Here’s what Paul knew from both experience and observation:  Trivial pursuits never love you back. The Eternal Pursuer loved you first.

Everything you pursue on earth just wants more of you.  It’s why they say no cocaine high is ever as good as that first one. And addiction is the endless quest for what is simply not available. Trivial pursuits never love you back. The Eternal Pursuer loved you first.

Listen:  when Demas sacrificed what is eternal on the altar of what is trivial, he turned his back on God’s pursuing love and put his soul in peril.  You love this world and ignore the next one and you are in danger of the same.  If you reject or ignore the love of God in this life you will be separate from it in the next.  We call that hell.  Yes, we believe in it here.  My gosh, any God who wouldn’t punish and separate Osama bin Laden, Isis, Hitler . . . what kind of God is this?

And just when you are feeling secure, like “I ain’t near as bad as those guys!” comes the question: but where is the line? And you’re hoping way over there! but you don’t know.

Here’s something I do know: what happened to ER physician Dr. Richard Rawlings, who as a skeptic investigated a great many Near Death Experiences.  Listen:

I resuscitated a man who came back from the edge of death, and he was terrified.  He had a grimace of sheer horror, he was trembling, his hair looked as if it was on end, and he called out, “I am in hell!”

In my research, almost 50% of Near Death Experiences involve imagery like lakes of fire, menacing figures, and the darkness of hell. Just listening to those patients has changed my whole life.  There is a life after death, and if I don’t know where I’m going it’s not safe to die.

It’s not safe to die. Yikes.

And what might hell look like?  Something like this:

After all, what did Jesus say?  Why have you forsaken me? And that’s what hell is. The utter absence, complete forsakenness of God and by God.  Something like that pain and regret is what happens when you sacrifice what is eternal on the altar of what is trivial.  I don’t want anyone hearing my voice today to go there.

Why?  Because what you are pursuing isn’t loving you back.  But you have been loved first. What’s that over-familiar verse say?  For God so loved…We didn’t start that ball rolling.  You were loved first. That’s why God doesn’t have to love you back; he loved first.  And although God has to punish evil ultimately, he is doing everything in his power to see that hell is as empty as possible.  God is using every bit of influence at his disposal, including this worship gathering.  Because look at the cross again:

… yes, it shows what hell is like, but more importantly it shows what Jesus went through to keep you out of it.

He went through hell on earth so that you wouldn’t have to go to hell after earth.  It’s all because he wants to love you into his kingdom.  He longs for you to come to that place where you’re tired of pursuing those trivial things that will never love you back – from minor stuff to major stuff like the affair that’s ruining your marriage – and so you surrender to the pursuit of the one who loved you first.

Where you give Jesus your life without reservation, without crossing your fingers, without delay.  It’s so much like the friend of mine who had some health concerns – scary ones – and he decided that if his time was short he did not like what he would be remembered for.  He took some personal inventory and found himself lacking, so began reconciling relationships and restoring connection with the Lord. I get a front row seat to ongoing redemption; to love winning.  Trivial pursuits never love you back. The Eternal Pursuer loved you first.

Really, it’s like the young boy who was getting a dog as a gift.  So the family went to the kennel and were looking through a large collection of dogs who needed a home.  Eventually, the boy locked eyes on a little mutt with a big tail – and that tail was wagging.  WAGGING. So finally the boy points at it and says, “I’d like the one with the happy ending.”

And so do I.  For you. I don’t want you to pursue things that are ultimately trivial and so ignore that which is genuinely eternal.  I also don’t want you to think, “I’ll get to it later.  I know he’s right, but I’m good now and I’ll just deal with it later.”  Oh, you don’t know when later is, time might be really short, and even if it’s not remember . . . you’ll come back with bodies buried in the yard.  Regrets.  Broken promises, wrecked relationships, and the jadedness that comes from people who relentlessly acquire stuff that will never love them back.

Because we don’t know how Demas’ story ended.  We don’t know if his short-sighted deal continued or if he came back and raised the white flag to love.  He’s a bit like that obituary I saw that ended with To Be Continued…

We all will be, you know.  The question is, where?  Into the arms of love or into the landfill of triviality?

One of the most frightening phrases – threats, even – in the common language is, “I hope you get what you deserve! I hope you get what’s coming to you!”  It’s hardly ever used in the positive, is it?  We don’t say to someone, “I hope you get that promotion that I applied for!”  Nope.  We’re not that way. When our parents – or our enemies – use it with us, it’s never a prelude to “blessings are going to flow for your good behavior.” It’s more like “when Dad gets home he’s going to give you just what you deserve!” We’ve heard the phrase. We use the phrase. You know when it is for me?  Oh, Lord, when someone passes me going 52 in a 35 after tailgating me for three blocks, I think,“Lord, please give them what they deserve! A ticket from heaven!”   Road rage karma!

A lot of you dig back in the recesses of your mind and your behavior and consider what you deserve, what’s coming to you. It’s not much.  You think back to your past and the abuse you received that has become at some level the abuse you give – and you don’t feel you deserve much.  You think of your self-worth and believe it’s tied to your net worth and if it is, it’s not much.  You even think of the time you have wasted on trivial pursuits and so when you consider your ability to make a difference for God, to be a player in his grandly redemptive plan you figure:  I don’t deserve that.  You wasted too much time, read too little Bible, attended church too randomly, thought “if Talbot only knew what I’m really like he wouldn’t be nice to me,” and so you have concluded: other people out there are better suited to do God’s work than I am.

Really, what happens is this:  a lot of folks use their past, their failures, as an excuse (because I did that, because I became that, I can’t take part in this) to avoid making an impact.  To avoid tapping into the hero hiding inside them.  Inside you.  All because you think that life is about merit, that karma is unshakable, and that you’re going to get what you deserve and having the privilege of serving God isn’t on that list.

And if anyone ever had reason to dread getting what he deserved, it was Onesimus.  We are in Colossians 4, a hidden part of a small New Testament letter, written to a church in a city that no longer exists, and we’re zeroing in on a section win which Paul mentions eight people by name.  And because the names are obscure and generally hard to pronounce we usually skip right over this section of the letter.  We keep it hidden! So in this series that uncovers all these hidden heroes, we saw last week that Tychicus is the guy who actually delivers what God has inspired and what Paul has written.  And that brings us to Colossians 4:9: “He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.”

Onesimus – faithful and dear brother, who is one of you.  Tuck them away because those words of Paul are so interesting.  And they are so interesting because of all these hidden heroes, Onesimus actually is the least hidden because he is a lead character in another New Testament book. Philemon! Most of you didn’t know there was a Philemon, which is a shame because it is a one-chapter book.  See! You could have read through it in 10 minutes and then boasted to people that you read a whole book in the Bible but you didn’t know it was even there.  Anyway, that little book is a letter from Paul to Philemon concerning Onesimus.

Onesimus was a runaway slave who had belonged to Philemon.  Yes, in ancient Rome slaves were part of the cultural and economic landscape – not based on race, not for a lifetime, but based more on debt.  It wasn’t pretty, mind you (read Exodus for God’s more definitive outlook on slavery).  And Onesimus has likely run away and stolen from Philemon. While on the run, he somehow connects with Paul, who leads him to faith in Christ, and now he must deal with his past in order to prepare for his future.

Look at how Paul describes him in Philemon 1:10-11: “that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.”

Was useless.  Apparently even before running away, Onesimus was bad at his job. Like the singer whose mike you turn off. Like the guy on a permanent performance plan.  Like me with a set of tools.  Useless. And that was Onesimus.  So he’s got a trifecta going on at this stage of his life: poor performer, AWOL, and a thief. Imagine if Paul had said, “you are gonna get what you deserve, young man.”  The answer to that, legally speaking, was death.

And yet look at what Paul says in Philemon:  “was useless; is useful.”  And then he grows much more intimate by the time of Colossians 4 – faithful, dear brother, one of you.  And I wonder: how do you go from that to that?  From outside to inside?  From  failure to brother?  From deserves death to becomes family? I think of how easy it would have been for Onesimus to lurk in the shadows of the church even after his conversion, to stay detached, uninvolved, excluded, to be and get what he deserved.  And get this: it would have been so tempting to use his past and use his failure as an excuse.  They won’t accept me. I’m AWOL and a thief.

And someone here is the same way. It’s why you hang on the margins of faith, the edges of church.  I’ve seen you do it! You use those failures and that past and even a negative experience with a previous church as an excuse to throw a pity party.  And you are the guest of honor!  And the music is up so loud!  And you see folks in LifeGroups, you see people volunteering, you know people are living large, unselfish lives and you just focus on you. Poor, pitiful you.

But Onesiumus doesn’t succumb to that!  He is somehow transformed from useless to useful.  From exile to brother. From runaway to someone entrusted alongside Tychicus with handling the inspired word.  He doesn’t get what he deserves; somehow, some way, he got better.

And then I realize:  Your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve. It depends on what he declares.  And in the offstage portion of this glorious story, from the moment Paul led Onesimus to faith in Christ, God declared over the runaway:  “All things new!  Useful to me!  My child.”  Even the name Onesimus means, literally, “useful.”  And names are given, not earned; they are declared, not deserved.

Your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

All of you here who are liars, runaways, thieves: your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

All you who are abusers or abused:  your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

All of you who have decided that because of what you’ve done and where you’ve been, you might sit in church but no way will you be used by God for significance: your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

For those who at best figure you will barely make it into heaven yourself and no way will you take someone else with you: your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

For the person who is scared you will drag the rest of the team down with you if you sign up at all: your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

See, I get a little riled up about this because Satan tries to steal who you are.  He steals your potential by convincing you that you are not worthy of forgiveness.  He steals your confidence by persuading you that your true worth really does equal your net worth. He waters down your understanding of your own spiritual gifts to render you inoperative in the body of Christ.  He’s so active at this, so good at this, that he is the life of the pity party you’re throwing. You’re the guest of honor, he’s the DJ, and he’s playing that music louder and louder and louder.

Because he wants to drown out God’s relentless:  all things new.  Now useful to me.  So don’t let him.

We are preparing to massively expand our ability to invite all people and it only happens as all take part.  Not take part as in, “I’m so proud of that church where I go sit on Sundays.” But take part as in, “I am myself commissioned by God to invite someone into a living relationship with Jesus today. I have a hero hiding in my who can do ministry in my LifeGroup.   I have hidden my hero who can be a mentor to a student.  I have a hero inside me who will hold a new nursery baby.”  Where we go from a church of grateful but passive observers to emboldened and confident ministers. I don’t want to hear how your past paralyzes your or how failure fragments you: your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

Even better than “useful” is the Colossians 4:9 tag:  “One of us.”  Family imagery.  So powerful for a slave to hear.  An outsider to internalize.  I remember in our first week in Monroe in 1990 that the senior citizens of that church had a Friday Fish Dinner. Fish Camp.  Now please: culture shock was engulfing me.  I’m from the city, school in the North, Julie ain’t no Southern Belle, and five days in we’re at a fish camp? Pronounced “feesh camp.” But at the end of dinner, when we’re getting up to leave, Mr. Max Helms – whom I’d met earlier in the week in his corn field (!) points a bony finger at me and says, “You’re one of us now.”  I wasn’t. But I was.  Not earned. Declared. the blood of Jesus demolishes the corrosive effects of the past. And more important, in destroys the distinctions between “in” and “out” and “us” and “them.”   You might be experiencing culture shock simply by sitting in a church today, but if so, don’t hide behind your failures when Christ points at you and says,“you’re one of us now.”

Listen: you’ve got a hero hiding in you.  You’ve just allowed your past or your failure as an excuse to keep it under wraps. Until today, you’ve preferred inaction to ministry but I want you to know God has declared you “new, useful” and is simply waiting for you to accept his declaration and step into the adventure.

Your value to God doesn’t depend on what you deserve.  It depends on what he declares.

Because you might be interested to know what happened to Onesimus.  He never did get what he deserved.  He heard the sound of God’s declaration, by the time of Colossians he was entrusted with the oracles of God, and church history tells us that a few years later he became the bishop – the lead pastor – of the church in Ephesus! Multiple sources tell us that!  From useless to bishop! From crook to preacher!  From AWOL to apostle. From runaway to leading people home.  It’s the kind of upward mobility that is only powered by grace. Onesimus didn’t get what he deserved.  He got better.

May we say the same about all the hidden heroes here today.