Fathers House Church

Living in Longview, the last thing you might ever imagine is living without rain for longer than a month or two. Personally, I could stand more sun, but hey, who am I, Elijah? There have been long droughts recorded in the US, including one that is still going on in Texas. Thinking of Texas and droughts, I’m reminded about old westerns I watch on TV, often set in dry, rainless, dusty towns; my favorite being High Plains Drifter. Most westerns end up with a new sheriff coming to town to bring law and order back to a lawless place filled with corrupt lawmen and scared citizens. As near impossible as it is to fathom, the worlds longest recorded drought lasted 400 years from 1571 until 1971 in the Atacama Desert of Chile, the driest place on Earth.
Elijah the prophet prayed that the rain would stop in Israel and it did. In fact, it ceased for three and a half years. We might look at a guy like Elijah and say, “Now, that guy was holy. He was extra spiritual.” James chapter 5 says that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; in other words, fully human, with fears, failures and weakness. There are reasons he called for a drought. The Jews were in a 7 generation tailspin of evil leadership. Each king following Solomon “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Each king was corrupt; following the ways of Baal, the god of the storm.
A drought causes people to get thirsty. A spiritual drought can cause people to get thirsty for spiritual things. I believe we are living in such a time. Joel 2:23 “He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain…” The latter rain is the last days outpouring of the Holy Spirit which will bring spiritual renewal to dry, thirsty souls.
The drought in Israel eventually brought about a showdown between the prophets of Baal and Elijah. Though outnumbered 450-1, Elijah showed them that there was a new sheriff in town.
Let it rain.

I just met with an old pastor friend of mine who was in town the other day. He hadn’t been to Longview for years and is now living in a southern state where water only falls out of the sky when you turn your sprinkler on. He had forgotten how green everything is here. He lived here for many years, but he had to see it again for himself to remember the beauty of the Northwest. Of course, he has been here all week with the sweet weather we’ve been experiencing. It’s easy to enjoy our surroundings when all in life is going well. The kids are behaved, the job is secure, the car is running right, your neighbors get along with you, you have money in the bank; the Mariners are on a 2 game win-streak. Life is good. Even problems that occur aren’t that big of a deal. The sunshine of life is hitting you pretty good right now. You might even have the rarest of sightings around these parts; a suntan. Suddenly however, there seems to be a chink in the armor; a monkey in the wrench, a fly in the ointment. Perhaps it’s just life. Then again, maybe it’s something more. Perhaps the devil and his minions are working overtime to steal, to kill and to destroy you.

Michael the archangel was arguing with the devil who himself was a former archangel. Michael was certainly Lucifer’s equal and perhaps more. You would think that Michael might just start pounding on him; after-all, Michael is a warring angel. Instead, Michael said four words that ought to be our battle cry in the unseen battle for the souls of men. Jude 9 tells us what Michael said to the devil. “The Lord rebuke you.” I don’t know what is happening in your life or family right now, but rest assured, God knows. He cares. He is fully capable of handling the devil. Why not learn to say, “The Lord rebuke you.” Even when the sun don’t shine.

I remember when I was all of 7 or 8 years old, living in Moses Lake. I had a few friends I still remember including the twins, Marty and Monty Bone. Their last name reflected them; skinny, hard and bony. I don’t remember too much about them except for having a few fights here and there and playing football in the backyard. My biggest memory is being in their house one summer day when one of them put a record on. I don’t remember any adults being around, I just remember well to this day hearing Hey Jude blaring through the speakers at an ear-crushing volume. The Bones were singing it at the top of their lungs and I just kind of stood there, blown away by the volume. That was the first day I was introduced to the Beatles. I liked it.

Hey Jude was written by Paul McCartney about Julian (Jude) Lennon, John Lennon’s first born son. John, not known as a good father, was barely around to see Julian grow up and he wrote this song to Julian, (originally titled Hey Jules) to make him feel better.

The short letter of Jude, brother of Jesus, was written to believers to let them know that they must contend for the faith in the face of various kinds of opposition. He ends his letter with the words, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding Joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever more.” 

That makes me feel better.

One of the greatest vacations I ever enjoyed was when Nancy and I went with our friends on a Carnival cruise to the Caribbean. We walked up a river in Jamaica and laid around on a beach in the Grand Caymans. Mostly, it was a blast just being on the ship; the weather was perfect, the ocean calm, the bands were rockin’ and the food was good-n-plenty. Some Carnival cruise passengers haven’t been so lucky. Especially those on the ship Triumph. These unfortunate passengers suffered on a ship adrift in the ocean without electrical power and sewage pumping. Talk about stink. Carnival offered each passenger $500.00 and gave each a full refund as well as a voucher for a free cruise to be taken later. I’m not sure many will take them up on that one. As bad as it was on the ship at times, I’m sure many passengers felt like jumping overboard, just to escape the miserable stench, brutal heat and rotting food. As tempting as it was to get off, the safest thing to do was to stay on the ship.

We are tempted sometimes to “get off the ship.” In Acts 27, Paul advised the crew taking him and other passengers (criminals mostly) to stay on the ship even when the ship was being blasted apart from the wind and waves.

I believe God is telling us through this story to “stay on the ship.” Keep on with worship, fellowship and practicing stewardship with the things God has allowed you to have. It can be tempting to jump off the ship when things get tough and you and I face contrary winds that are blowing in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

To add insult to injury, just a few days ago, Triumph was moored at a facility to bring it back to full sailing capacity when the ropes holding the ship came loose and once again the Triumph was adrift at sea. If we are to triumph in our spiritual life, we need to stay in the ship, safely moored to the Lord Jesus. Stay in the ship.

One day when I was about 9 or 10, our family woke up to find that someone had broken into my parent’s Cadillac Eldorado and pelted the beautiful interior with eggs. My brothers and I took guesses as to which of our knucklehead neighbors it might have been. Several names came up, but we never did find out for sure who did it.

Speaking of eggs, when I was a kid, Easter meant looking for colored eggs in our yard. We didn’t always find them all and sometimes days, weeks or even months later, we would see them in a bush and their nice pastel color couldn’t make up for the sewer-smell emanating from them. Real eggs; other than throw them inside Cadillacs, what would a 10 year old do with real eggs? Easter really was on the low end of holidays as far as I was concerned. Halloween was great, Christmas awesome and even Thanksgiving at least had lots of turkey and gravy, but Easter? I didn’t get the point.

Next week, when we are at the Expo center for our Easter service, there will be an Easter egg hunt immediately after our church service. We hope you will invite families with kids to come. Maybe those families will come for the Easter egg hunt, but find themselves immersed in something more. I would hope that next week our regular church folk will look for any new faces and let them know they are welcome in our house. I hope they find that Easter means more than what they think it is. I hope they see that God loves them and we do too.

If you own a Caddy, we’ll have no real eggs, I promise.

An earthquake was coming; predicted to hit at an exact day and hour. A doomsday prophet-seismologist had predicted a major earthquake to hit in April of 1981 in Southern California. I was in school there at the time and a few of us decided to get out of town for the day of the coming catastrophe. We traveled to Las Vegas where one of the friend’s dads could let us stay a night or two free in that Casino where he worked. Meanwhile, the ones who stayed behind threw a giant earthquake party. The dreaded earthquake never happened and we took some well-deserved barbs for fleeing the area like little cowards. The prophet had been right a time or two before so they say and well, we didn’t want to take any chances. In essence, we worried about nothing. We spent time and energy worrying and acting upon our fears.
Peace is the opposite of worry. There are all kinds of things to worry about in this world. It is said that of all the things that we worry about, only 8% actually happen. Worry actually causes much more damage than the actual possible event would anyway. It eats at your insides, it clouds your mind from living in reality, makes you more susceptible to disease and mostly, just makes you miserable.
Jesus offers you and I peace that passes understanding. It is a peace that no medicine, no drug, no guru or activity could match. This peace comes from four things; rejoicing at all times, giving God your worries through prayer, getting your mind to think about good things and then actually doing the things God asks you to do.
Peace in the storm. Even in an earthquake. Next time, I’ll throw a party.

I turned out for cross country my sophomore year of high school. I came back to my senses and played football my junior and senior years. Cross country was brutal. There was no ball to throw, no one to tackle or stop. You had one job; run faster than other guys in a long, long race that made your lungs ache and your feet hurt. Cross country is a sport where daily training is a must; and everyday the training was different only in that you would run at different places. If I was incredibly fast and built for long distance running, I would have endured the sport much better than I did, but unfortunately, I had neither qualification. I usually finished way back in the race. One thing I did learn from that particular season though; regardless of the pain and fatigue and being in near last place; press on and finish the race.

The apostle Paul says to the church in Philippi; press on. Forget what lies behind and press on to the prize, the goal, which is the upward call of God in Jesus Christ. It’s tempting to quit, especially when things aren’t going your way, in fact, following Jesus in some ways has meant that life got more difficult. He asks you to give money that it seems you don’t have to give. He asks you to forgive someone you don’t want to forgive, He asks you to love people that drive you nuts. He tells you to take up your cross and follow Him. He asks you to share your faith and to tell others the great things God has done for you. It’s tempting to not do those things. It’s very tempting to quit once you get started because your lungs ache and your feet hurt. Finish the race. He is not asking you to be better at those things than others; He is asking you to finish your race and cross the finish line.

Press on.

Muhammad Ali once said, “It’s hard to be humble when you are the greatest.” I suppose so. I wouldn’t know what that feels like. I’ve had some good accomplishments along with some dismal failures in my life. I remember singing a solo at a Christmas program once when I was 19 or so in front of a packed house at Mark Morris gym. I was singing with a guy who accompanied me on the guitar. We had three concerts that day and the first two times, I sang it just fine. The third time however, I totally blanked out in front of all these people. It was in the middle of the song and suddenly I couldn’t remember anything. I saw the spotlight glaring at me and the silhouettes of heads in the glow. Brutal enough, but then I had the guitar player start over from the beginning thinking I would surely remember the next time through. In the same exact spot, I froze once again. Making matters worse, I started to half sing-speak, firing off Christmas words that I thought would trigger my memory…manger…, swaddling clothes…, shepherds…, etc. I walked off the stage in total embarrassed misery, forever etched in my mind, a humble reminder that I am not all that and a bag of chips.
Unlike my brutal humbling solo attempt, Jesus chose to be humble. Not just a little humble, but He lowered Himself to the point of being spat upon, beaten and crucified by the very ones He came to save. At any moment, He could have called on the forces of heaven to retaliate, but instead chose to stay humbly contained in humanness. He touched the blind, the lame and even lepers, the outcasts of society. God loves humility. He loves to pour favor on those who walk in humility. God opposes the proud, but gives grace (favor) to the humble.
Ali could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but I think I’ll sing my praises to a humble King who came wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger; assuming of course, I don’t have to sing that song again.

I have a friend who loves projects. The feeling of starting something new makes him happier than a tornado in a trailer park. He just doesn’t love to finish them. Few things in life bug me more than starting a project and not finishing it. A few years back, I built a deck in our backyard. I grabbed my hammer and skill saw and went to work. I determined that I would start and just keep going until I finished. A week later it was mostly done. Usable, not completely finished, but usable. Over the next few weeks, a few fine touches were added on. Just one problem; the deck wasn’t completely solid. Fall and winter arrived and the thought of the deck not being absolutely solid bugged me all winter. Every-time I would look at it, all I could think of about was what an idiot I was for not doing it right the first time and that it had to be fixed. As soon as the weather turned nice, my son and I shored it up. I could then sleep peacefully. I just had to finish it.

Paul reminds us in Philippians that “He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it.” The great carpenter, Jesus, is more than capable of not just starting a work in you and I, but also completing it. He takes His tools and uses them masterfully to make you and I into the people He has always desired us to be. He allows us to grow stronger through trials, but never leaves us. He allows temptation to come at us, but never more than we can handle. He exposes our sinful nature then brings light into our darkness. All the while, He increases our capacity to love God, others and ourselves by revealing His incredible love for us. He increases our knowledge of Himself and gives us wisdom and discernment way beyond our natural capabilities. He will complete the job. He loves projects.

The Seahawks should have been there; I mean of course, at the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl NFL championship game a few weeks ago ended up being just that; a Super game. The first half was all Baltimore and the second half kickoff was returned for a touchdown to nearly put the game away for the Ravens. Then at halftime the lights went out. Players and coaches sat down, talked, stretched and regrouped for the next thirty minutes or so. What was becoming a clear blowout in the beginning of the third quarter ended up being a nail-biter with San Francisco at the finish. We all know the Seahawks would have won, but still…
Darkness changed the game.
Darkness was on its way while the Israelites were clearly blowing out the opposition; a five army team coming to attack Gibeon, the city the Jews promised to protect. The power and favor of God was clearly with the Israelites against this formidable foe, but darkness would be coming in a matter of hours and Joshua realized the battle would have to shut down for lack of light until morning. Joshua knew that darkness could change the game. He knew that the opposition could indeed regroup and make a tremendous charge against the Jews if allowed to rest overnight. So, he did what we would imagine impossible; he told the sun and moon to stay right where they were. Amazingly, the sun did not move, nor did the moon. The Jews were given additional hours of daylight; some commentators believe as much as a full extra 24 hours of light to finish the five armies off.
You and I live in a dark world. We as Christians are called to be light on this earth. The only way we can be light is to be filled with that light; the power source needs to stay connected, the breakers kept in the on position. Whatever darkness may bring: fear, hatred, bitterness, confusion, loneliness, abuse etc., we need to remember that God sees plenty well in the dark and He can guide, protect and direct us.
The Seahawks came up short, but I’m sure the Mariners will win the World Series this year. I can dream can’t I? Hey, Joshua made the sun and moon stay in the sky, so maybe…