Category: Life

Gospel and Whirlybird’s

Silva

The King and the Whirlybird

Over the last few weeks, as you know, I’ve been teaching about the gospel: Christ for us, us in Him; Him in us and us living for Him.  I have suggested that dwelling on the historical, external and objective facts of God’s actions in Christ is the key to joy, certainly to parenting (see Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23!).

I’ve personally struggled to overcome the idea that “all that’s not very practical.  How can it possibly work?”  I’m not sure where that question comes from.  Maybe the church has become so obsessed with doing.  As I’ve been reading in the New Testament – especially the letters – I see that doing always followed believing.  The writers regularly give us the “indicative” (the facts) before they give us the “imperative” (the commands; see for yourself: Ephesians 1-3, then 4-6).  Jesus Himself tells us to “abide” before “obey”; in fact, the former is the key to the latter (John 15:4ff).

Something decisive happens to us when we are converted.  Paul says we are buried, raised and seated with Christ (Romans 6, Ephesians 2).  But we are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  That indwelling means something grand: He has brought power and all the resources of heaven to prosecute His will for us, namely, our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

Yet, our regular testimonies to each other are of worry, depression, sexual sin, failures to give or serve, anger, bitterness, etc.  Why is that? What are we missing?  Well, marrying up, as I did, means many things.  One cool thing has been interesting additions to my library.  Kim, since she was an infant, has had this book called “The King and the Whirlybird” by Mabel Watts (1969, Parents Magazine Press).  It has been especially interesting for me these days.  It opens:

Once there was a King who owned a wonderful kind of flying machine called a whirlybird.  He had a pilot who could fly it, by the name of Joe.  But the King would not fly.  The whirlybird has its very own hangar.  And its very own whirlyport.  But the King would have nothing to do with any of them.  “Flying is for the birds,” he said.  “And I’m not a bird!”  “There are other ways to travel,” said His Majesty the King.

And he traveled quite a lot.

“Fetch the royal coach!” roared the King.

“The ancient old coach with the wobbly old wheels?”  asked Joe the Pilot who was also Joe the Coachman.

“That’s the one,” said the King.

“The coach that goes careening down the hills?”  asked Joe.  “The coach that throws you down into a heap upon the floor?”

“You know perfectly well which one I mean!” said the King.

“The newest way to travel is by whirlybird,” said Joe.  “It’s the modern way for going round about!”

“Flying is for the birds,” said the King.  “And I’m NOT a bird!”

Now, Joe was more than a faithful pilot, the man was a jack of all modes of transportation.  More importantly, each time the King would choose something other than the whirlybird, he would subtly remind the King that whatever mode of travel he used, it paled compared to the whirlybird.  Here’s a sample:

Every day Joe showed the King all the wonderful things the whirlybird could do.  He spun it right straight up in the air, which its engines buzzing and its rotors turning.  He spun it right straight down, the same way.  He made is shuttle sideways.  And backwards.  And full speed ahead.  He made it hover above the King and waggle its tail…like a hummingbird over a honeysuckle bush.

“There’s very little traffic in the air,” said Joe.  “Besides, it would do Your Majesty good to try something new!”

Miss Watts takes us through several modes of transportation that the King chooses instead of the whirlybird.  Each time, Joe would faithfully challenge him, but we read:

… the King would not fly.  He was a regular old king-in-the-mud!

Consider whether or not you are like the King.  Here’s what I mean.  Those who are in Christ are co-heirs with Him (Romans 8:17); we are kings and queens just as our parents Adam and Eve were created to be; we rule as God’s representatives.  Just like the man in the book, we are blessed with position and power.

Secondly, in Christ, God has given us tasks to do – a mission.  We each have a vocation and family (provinces of the kingdom) from the Lord that is our duty as kings and queens to “rule.”  Reading in our little book, you’d see that the King was a very busy man with much to do.

Thirdly, in Christ, Paul tells us something outrageous, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He also not freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)  All things: the Holy Spirit (see Luke 11:13).  For us, He is just like Joe – someone who reminds us that we have whirlybirds and don’t need to use coaches that leave us in heaps on the floor.

So, like Joe reminding the King of the whirlybird, this most exalted and glorious Person living in us strengthens us to do our work by reminding us of the gospel.  Jesus did say that the content of His ministry would be the same message of Christ when He walked the earth (John 14:26).

Lastly, however, the King ignores Joe and his message and goes about his work his own way.  We are like regular old kings-and-queens-in-the-mud: we ignore the Holy Spirit and the gospel and choose to do the mission of God (jobs, families, or relationships) in our own ways.  Like the King, we prefer coaches, running-by-foot, horses or trains.  We quickly and regularly run out of the steam we need to obey Christ and we do not (which is serious because He says that if we love Him we will obey Him; John 14:15).

The King knows he has the whirlybird; he listens to Joe extol its virtues and sees its wonder.  But, he stubbornly refuses and sets off to do it his own way.  We, too, know the gospel and have seen the glory of its work, but we stubbornly refuse to dwell on it, think on it, pray about it, or depend on it.  “It’s got to be more complicated than that!”  The book finally takes the King into a situation where nothing and no one can be of any help.  So, you know what he does?  He calls for the whirlybird.

Joe made the whirlybird hover over the palace, like a puppet on a string.  He made it really whirl, like a windmill with wings.  And the King was delighted, “Flying is for the birds,” he said.  “And it’s great for people, too….There are many ways to travel,” said His Majesty the King.  “And the whirlybird is best!”

Delight yourself in the Lord and the work He has done for you in Christ and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4)!

Pastor Gabe

God: Our Greatest Gift

Silva

Part II.

Previously on 24…I was making the point that we all live with goals in life.  Those of us who believe in Christ include in our goals spiritual ones: less of this, more of that.  That we would put on more goodness and put off more yuck.  These are not bad in any universe. Until…

Until we arm ourselves with the incorrect tool.  I was talking about Radio Man Stan and his commitments in Lent.  Once again, to buckle down to more Bible study is a good thing.  To use Lent as a means to spur one on to that end: good thing.  What struck me at a visceral level was both how charming he thought he was being in doing so and the fact that it might be true that his (our) failures had more to do with him (us) than with God.

So, in that universe of thinking, God is a tool: the means to a better you or your best life now.  In that universe of thinking, what’s most important is that I be better.  We aren’t actually living for His glory but for our own ever increasing glory (or happiness).  We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do and be better.  We watch other parents and spouses and co-workers and etc. and tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  We even see others who serve more and love more and die-to-self more and we tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  (And we’re probably right.)

Then we realize (quickly) that we aren’t.  Or, if we are, we might’ve picked the ones against whom we stack up pretty nicely.  In this universe of being better we are always looking for tools.  Of course we need them because without them (i.e., status quo) we aren’t better.  According to the laws that we set down for ourselves, we fail to keep them at best or we regularly break them at worst and God as our tool to better selves doesn’t work too well.  We end up still screaming, pouting, failing, manipulating and getting caught.  So the problem must be God – He’s just not enough.

Now, I don’t know anyone who actually talks that way, but, I do know a whole lot of people who are disgusted with the regularity of their sin and they don’t know how to stop or change.  (Hint: They’ve “used” God and it hasn’t worked.)   Suggest to them something simple and they get the glazed eye look.  I once had a seminary instructor who was livid after a guest chapel preacher mimicking James 5 told folks that if they are sick, they should confess their sins and see if it is related.  He was blathering on about how simplistic and stupid this man was!  The thought that sin and sickness could be related (even though it’s clearly in the passage).

I’ve seen something shocking in the faces of believers who are desperate for something different: gospel boredom.  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means little.  It means a lot when we talk about eternal address, but parenting?  Communication?  Mercy ministry?  Forget about it.

We have become a people who demand something complicated.  How is that so when folks are typically clamoring for the books and teachers who have the easiest and most practical messages?  They are the ones who say citing simplicity and relevance, “Sermons must have applications that are relevant!”  These balk at those who beckon them to something more mysteriously complicated (they think) because we want it complicated not simple. We’d never say that though.

Check your heart: is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ where you turn when bombs start exploding in your marriage?  If I were to tell you what Paul tells us in the Scriptures, you would be skeptical.  You’d accuse me of oversimplification.  You’d tell me that maybe that works in seminary but not here.  Really?

The greatest gift we could ever have is a perfect life, an atoning death, a completed resurrection, and an assurance of an exorbitant inheritance, right?  Do we not see that in Christ that is exactly ours?

For us, in Him; in us, for Him.  It’s all done.

God: Our Greatest Tool?

Silva

Part I.

I was recently listening to a Christian radio station with my kids – safe for the whole family, you know – and the DJ was talking to his cohort about Lent.  As you may know, Lent is the time period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.  It is 40 days (not including Sunday’s) in which, historically, new church converts prepared for their Easter baptism.  But later in history the church used the time to prepare itself for the celebration of Easter.  It is historically a time of deprivation, repentance, and fasting.  With Ash Wednesday past and several of us engaged in Lenten deprivation, I was curious to hear what this guy would say from his bully pulpit.

He started to explain that for him Lent wasn’t really about depriving himself of something nor was it about preparation for Easter.  Rather it was personal – about being more focused on what he’s doing.  His focus: personal devotions – Bible study.  He had not been too consistent or faithful, he said, and so Lent was when he was really going to buckle down and get ‘er done.  So, no deprivation, rather earnest focus and voila: he has his Lenten plan!  It was interesting to note that he saw Lent very personally as a time to buckle down and just do it!

I have two problems with this.  First, this is just what this guy should be doing year round.  Any college student engaged in some college ministry could tell you that we should be in the Word regularly.  Sure, Lent provoked this guy to return to this discipline and that’s probably a good thing.  But, shouldn’t it have provoked him to this discipline simply because he should be doing it?  And then provoke him still to a real Lenten practice?  Far from deprivation and preparation, this guy resolved to do what he should do – and he thought he was doing something praiseworthy.  Here in the American church we have forgotten that obedience is our obligation according to Luke 17:10; that’s another post….

Set aside for the moment that this guy’s observance of Lent looks completely different from the historic church’s intent with Lent going back centuries (our American penchant for re-writing history to make us look good here in the present is subject for another day). When did we in America begin to think that we were doing something extraordinary by simply doing what God commands?

Interestingly (and secondly), the radio-dude exemplifies something that we need to see about ourselves.  The way he presented himself on the radio, for him, Lent was really about him.  It was a tool that he was going to use for his own spiritual self-help.  He needs to be a better him, so Lent provides the opportunity for that to happen.  Sounds like a good plan, right?  Isn’t that a very practical and useful way to do things?  We underestimate that at some point, practical and useful can become ungodly – maybe even from the beginning.  The ungodly thought process goes like this:

  • I’ve not been reading the Bible; I need to start.  “God please help me.”

My problem + God’s help = my success.  You could substitute many things in for “my problem” like “my troubled marriage” or “my pitiful parenting” or “my harsh communication.”  In this line of thinking, God is our greatest tool; He is the best and strongest means to an end.

What end?  Typically that end is guilt-free or worry-free living.  For many of us, what’s the greatest trouble with our failures?  In other words, what’s our biggest problem with our failures?  Isn’t it usually how they make us feel about ourselves?  Unfortunately, we are most often content to moan about what our failures mean to us rather than how they may grieve the Lord.

One way to check ourselves is to ask: is God is really necessary to be more consistent in reading the Bible?  Can’t you just arrange your schedule so you have time?  Set an alarm?  Get accountability?  Pledge to teach a passage?  Take medication?  Seriously, do we really need God to read more consistently?  Here’s what C.S. Lewis said about this:

I haven’t always been a Christian.  I didn’t go to religion to make me happy.  I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.

Radio-Man Stan’s (not his real name) consideration of Lent and his use of the time highlights what so much of the American church thinks about God and Christ: tools for us to use to better ourselves.  I know, you’re thinking, “the guy was going to do Bible study – how’s that self-focused?!” Generally speaking, we tend to think in terms of “how can I get where I need to go?”  We think that way about our weight, our jobs, our communication, our use of money, our knowledge of Scripture verses, our marriage or our parenting.  Why wouldn’t we turn that kind of thinking to our relationship with God?  No one ever acts without a reason or even a point.  We are constantly using things to get other things.  How do we know that we haven’t somehow been doing the same thing in our spiritual lives?  Why wouldn’t we “use” God – the greatest of all powers – to get what we want?