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Sifting Rocks and Pulling Weeds

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by Dan Amos

I live on South Hill, so I am very familiar with rocks. We’ve landscaped with rocks mostly dug up from planting things, putting in a fence, etc. I’ve even developed a tool to help me separate rocks from the dirt. It sifts the dirt and leaves the rocks and weeds to separate into buckets. I’m pretty sure my wife thinks I’m crazy, but I get satisfaction out of taking a mess and coming out with a bucket of just rocks to add to the landscaping. The process is simple and gives me time to think, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is this process as a metaphor for what Martin and Brian have been teaching.

Jesus was the ultimate evangelist. He had His discipleship ministry with a small number of people and He had His larger teaching and preaching ministry with the crowds. In Mark 4, he was speaking to a crowd from a boat on the lake about the soils as a metaphor for how his teaching would be received differently by people.

Some would hear and become mature disciples, while others would hear and not produce fruit because of Satan, failure to embrace what they heard, or distraction by the things of life. This last Sunday, Brian moved the thought along to those who embraced the Word and matured as disciples. He used the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 as markers of maturity for all Christians.

How did they get to this point? Were they just blessed from the beginning with the circumstances to allow belief and growth? Maybe partially, but they were cultivated. Maturing in faith is a community process. The pastors and leadership are charged with protecting the church, reinforcing the Word first heard, and protecting the hearers from being snatched away or failing to grow.

The rocks have to be removed. Disciple people to put down roots. Remove the rocks of infidelity, anger, drunkenness, and greed and replace them with a love of others and God’s Word.

Weeds are stubborn things. In Jesus’s parable, weeds are the worries of this life that choke out our spiritual growth. Some of them can actually look nice, but they will choke out good plants and take over. It can even seem noble to carry the burdens of others, but we have to guard against letting others’ life choices choke out our own spiritual life. Paul mentioned false teachers and specific individuals in 1 Timothy 1 and talked about distractions in chapter 2. Repeatedly throughout 1 Timothy, he talks about the things that pull us away from the truth and he exhorts Timothy to persevere and counter those who sow discord.

It’s about cultivation. Work the soil and make it a healthy place to grow.

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

1 Timothy 6:11-16

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My Dad and David

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By Dan Amos

The Sunday after Easter, my family and friends of my mom and dad gathered for a memorial for my dad. Mom has a certificate that says he died two weeks earlier, but we know that he was healed on that day and is more alive than ever. But this was not a certain conclusion – it was a nail-biter up until the end. I thought about this again this last Sunday when Martin spoke on David’s struggle in Psalm 139.

Dad was what the world would call a good man. Generations of kids remember him as the man who would make time for them and play with them, often when their own dads were gone or too busy. He retired from the Navy after 20 years serving on ships including the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. He served on the ground in Vietnam, and those memories haunted him until Alzheimer’s took all of his memories away.

The father I knew as a child took me to church. I even found a picture of him sitting at home reading his Bible. Dad was not an “up front” kind of person who was comfortable speaking in public, but I have a distinct memory of him standing in church at a Sunday evening service and testifying about what God was doing in his life. I don’t remember the content, but the image is clear. I also remember how we would mercilessly tease him about his off-key singing voice that I heard in church. I would love to hear that voice again!

However, he was haunted by secrets. No one knows what they were, but he occasionally would give us a glimpse by saying they were too awful to be forgiven. He ran from God and tried to hide. For most of his adult life he let the guilt of something keep him from knowing the peace of God’s forgiveness. This caused in me uncertainty – not about whether God would reject me, but about whether I could reject Him. I was somewhere between the Arminian and Calvinist positions and I was certain Dad needed to know where he stood. But he would not talk to us about it.

As awful as Alzheimer’s is, with the mental, emotional and physical destruction it causes, we have to see it as a blessing for my dad. The disease broke down his resistance until someone (who I believe was led by the Spirit) challenged him to make a conscious decision about his standing with God. Dad followed that up the next Sunday by responding to an altar call, and finally found the forgiveness that had always been waiting for him. Not long after, he made a public declaration of his faith while being baptized.

David sinned greatly, but he recognized he could not run from his sin. He repented. He was a man after God’s own heart because he chose to repent and receive forgiveness. I have the hope we get through the Gospel that my dad is in heaven with Jesus. Because he bowed his knee in this life, he was given new life. It didn’t have to end this way. He could have kept running, and the outcome would have been unthinkable. I wish he had chosen sooner – 40 years sooner – but the dad I loved did finally choose, and it is well.

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A Great Evangelist

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By Dan Amos

After Billy Graham died, my wife posted, “Can’t we all hear it? ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.'” I did a search on the reference to the parable of the servants in Matthew 25 and the results linked to many stories about Reverend Graham. He was a star of the evangelical Christian world, a man of good repute. We can easily imagine his homecoming, with Jesus waiting to welcome him.

The referenced parable has a couple of challenges for us. In the parable, Jesus told of servants being given varying amounts of responsibility and the servants carrying them out with varying levels of effort. Two served their master well and were diligent. One did not really like his master and chose to sit on what was given to him and do nothing. The first two were praised and rewarded. The third was chastised and cast out from the master’s presence.

Rev. Graham was reported as wondering why God had given him the ministry he did. We can easily equate him to the first servant who was given the most and produced a great return for the master. In terms of ministry, you may feel like you were given talents, gifts, ministry—or whatever you want to call it—more in line with the second or third servants. They may be smaller in human terms, but they are important to the master. Rev. Graham’s ministry was propelled by the Holy Spirit; the results are the Spirit’s work, just as any spiritual production of which we might be part. Our role is to be faithful in what we’ve been given and leave the results to God.

In the parable, the third servant is characterized differently than the first two. The third servant was critical of the master. He did not serve him with his whole heart. Indifferent or apathetic service, just going through the motions, is not service to the master but an outward show that doesn’t match an inward conviction. In this case, Jesus says the heart attitude is exposed and the servant is not truly a servant, is not saved, and will not be welcomed into the Master’s home. The faithless servant will see no reward and will spend eternity with all others lacking faith.

In part, the parable’s servants are judged by the results of their faith and rewarded accordingly. They are also judged on their faith. This judgment of faith is yes or no. Rev. Graham’s simple message straight from the Bible is we are all sinners and we all need the Savior. Billy knelt as a teenager and confessed his sin to Jesus. Jesus’s blood spilled 2,000 years earlier remains just as powerful then as it does today and has covered Billy’s sins and mine. Regardless of the things he achieved, the Father can only see Billy as righteous through the blood of Christ. That is the simple, enduring, and only way to salvation.

 

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Performance Feedback

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by Dan Amos

There are few things in life I dislike more than watermelon, chalkboard screeching, and performance feedback. I can decline the watermelon, and whiteboards have pretty much replaced chalkboards, but they keep making new ways to do feedback. At work, it’s a semiannual recurrence, whether I want it or not.

But, there’s a reason for it. Without feedback, we tend to not improve. While I’m pretty sure I have a good grasp on my world, I’m continually shown that there are other perspectives on things and lots of stuff to which I am just totally oblivious.

As a body, we at Elim are committed to making disciples—passionate followers of Jesus who seek to know God, grow together in Christ, and go and serve South Hill and beyond. We have a staff, a building, a budget, and people—so how are we doing? We can ask ourselves or a few and see part of the picture. But to really know, we need to get feedback from as many as possible.

Feedback isn’t just a general question about how you are doing personally, or how we are doing as a body. It’s more specific, and a team has put together some questions designed to make each of us think and give useful feedback. The answers to these questions will help assess our progress in the following:

  • Worshipping our Father
  • Maturing in our faith
  • Connecting as disciples in community
  • Reaching out to our unsaved neighbors and friends

Community groups and Bible studies are being asked to work through questions on these four areas. Regular attenders who are not currently in one of these groups will be asked to meet with a small group of others to give feedback. Someone will take notes, and all the notes will be collected and reviewed and studied for themes and things to work on. The idea is to keep moving forward as disciples. Complacency is not an option.

On another note, Tom Chase just finished six years as an elder and is taking his constitutionally-required break from that service. For the last few years he has been the vice-chairman of the board, and last year he led us as the chairman. He served sacrificially and with passion. He did not seek the position, but he humbly accepted it, to our great benefit. Thank you, Tom; and thank you, Corrie, for enabling him to serve so well!

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Truth

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By Dan Amos

About the time we started the series on James at Elim, Fran and I visited Washington, DC. One evening we visited the Jefferson Memorial and I was struck by the inscription chosen for the southeast portico wall. I could not help comparing those words to those Pastor Martin led us through from the first chapter of James.

The memorial’s quote was from a letter Jefferson wrote extolling man’s growing wisdom, but instead, I see it as an illustration of our arrogance.

It is this thinking that leads to calling good things evil and evil things good. It leads to questioning who God is and what role He plays in our lives. It leads to changing the teachings of Scripture and replacing the words of life with pretty but empty words that suit our modern sensibilities. Ultimately, it leads away from salvation and instead to death.

While Jefferson advocated that the things our ancestors believed become outdated and practices need to change with the times, James tells us the very opposite about God in 1:16-18.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.

James is using words that inflame contemporary wisdom, such as “Father” and “does not change” and “truth.” In his own life, Jefferson did not want to accept the deity of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles. We reject the wisdom of man and proclaim the following in our statement of faith:

We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.

That the Word of God is under attack is nothing new. It has been happening since the serpent spoke to Eve (and Adam passively listened). Great councils used to be called together to debate heretical teachings. Now the attacks are less dramatic, but they are everywhere, coming from every media, impossible to avoid. But the truth remains, and our access to it is as unprecedented as the lie is prevalent. All we have to do is open it.

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The Delinquent Elder

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By Dan Amos

A couple of weekends ago we had a crazy Sunday. Right after church we had a meeting which was followed by a graduation party and then another meeting. It was go, go, go, right until it was time to collapse into bed that night. It was not much of a day of rest.

The next weekend was similar. I knew that Sunday afternoon was completely filled and Sunday evening was another meeting. So, on Saturday, which was really another day of work, I recognized I needed a break. I chose then not to attend church in the morning. We rarely miss when we are home and we rarely go anywhere, so most weeks you’ll see us at church.

Now that the sun has returned, I realize my Sunday community is going to get smaller for the summer. Many of us take breaks when the weather is nice and kids are out of school. But, according to Hebrews 10:25, we are a community and we gather together for mutual benefit, instruction and encouragement. The verse implies it is easy to get out of the habit of meeting together and we should not neglect our community.

I think I can safely say it’s okay to miss a week. I’m pretty sure all of our Elders and Pastors have taken a break. We need to rest and sometimes say “no” to very good things in order to be healthy. Demands on our time can add up and have a way of growing without conscious assent.

The wise person maintains the margin in their life, leaving capacity for others, taking time to be still and listen, honoring their responsibilities and not neglecting assembling together. Enjoy these precious few days of sunshine and try to keep the complaints about it being too hot to a minimum. It’s already been too hot this year.

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