00:00:11.640 - 00:00:25.680

Well, good morning. I'm very honored to be here. And I want to say something before I begin. Just first of all, a huge word of gratitude to the seminary here. I believe that

00:00:25.680 - 00:00:38.750

we're in a time where the theological discussion that goes on here is so extremely important. So we appreciate what you're doing on behalf of the larger church and for those of you that are seminarians even more.

00:00:38.750 - 00:00:50.030

So how grateful we are that too many of you have responded to God's call upon your life and the church needs you. And so I'm very honored to get to be back at a seminary. It's been

00:00:50.030 - 00:01:00.080

a long time since I've been at a seminary. And it's a little odd for me in the sense that I'm really used to looking out at people that I know when I preach and know their context,

00:01:00.080 - 00:01:12.370

at least a little bit more than I do with all of you. But hopefully this will be helpful to you. Nonetheless, I am grateful also for the typo after that um incredible introduction of me,

00:01:12.380 - 00:01:23.960

You made me sound so much better than I am that I probably really needed the humility of although when ted said to me, what in the world that you're latin must be really good. I said yes

00:01:23.970 - 00:01:38.130

. As a matter of fact, well, my lad is horrible. So We have a wonderful teacher of Latin at one of our schools there that I depend on heavily at times. But anyway, our

00:01:38.140 - 00:01:53.420

scripture passage today is focusing mostly on first Thessalonians five . And really the reason that I chose this particular passages because it's meant so much to me personally over the last several months, especially in the context of

00:01:53.420 - 00:02:08.910

the messiness that is the church and ministry and the difficult challenges that are there before us and the conflicts that were in the burdens and the Brokenness of um of people who are in the church and the task

00:02:08.910 - 00:02:20.740

of preaching and teaching daily. That these are incredibly encouraging words to me. And so I hope they will be for you. They are also challenging and all the reasons why it's particularly challenging, I think

00:02:20.740 - 00:02:31.530

is because paul and this brief little passage and we could have read much more about these admonitions at the end. But to me, these are one of those places where this is a no escape clause,

00:02:31.530 - 00:02:46.660

kind of scripture text, no exceptions, no excuses , no ifs ands or buts in this kind of passage, but just do these things. So with that in mind, let me pray and then um

00:02:46.240 - 00:03:01.220

we'll talk more. Mhm. Lord, Once again we set our lives before your word, Grant us once again the humility to receive. And we asked that the Holy Spirit, the same holy spirit who

00:03:01.220 - 00:03:17.350

inspired these scriptures would speak once again to us such that these words find deep lodging in our hearts and minds and souls and we pray this in the name of christ our Lord Amen. Yeah, okay.

00:03:19.340 - 00:03:30.730

Have a very fond of a story of a man who lived in Chicago and it was wintertime in the midst of snow filled streets. He was leaving to go on vacation in florida. His wife was on

00:03:30.730 - 00:03:40.560

a business trip and was planning to meet up with him the next day. But when he got down to florida and he checked into his hotel and decided to send his wife an email, a quick email

00:03:40.560 - 00:03:53.060

and unfortunately he was unable to find the paper on which he had written her email address. And so I did the best he could from memory. And unfortunately again he missed it by one letter and so

00:03:53.060 - 00:04:09.890

instead his note was directed to this elderly preacher's wife whose husband had passed away only the day before. And when this grieving widow opened up her email and read this particular note, she let out a scream

00:04:09.890 - 00:04:26.430

and fell to the floor in a dead faint. Her family came rushing in and this is what they read on the screen. Dearest wife just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. You're

00:04:26.430 - 00:04:42.620

eternally loving husband. Ps sure is hot down here . Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Now something like that happened to you. You might consider yourself in something of a crisis, maybe even a faith crisis

00:04:42.620 - 00:04:57.760

with all of that. And I don't mean to belittle that by any means because we're talking today about serious business because crisis can be very personal. It's often very abrupt, comes without warning. A phone

00:04:57.760 - 00:05:15.730

call in the middle of the night. Lab reports financial reversal of failure. An accident by definition crisis is any event that is or is expected to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation. Know any of

00:05:15.730 - 00:05:30.040

those going on, what it can affect an individual , a group, a community or society as a whole. Most of the time we think about it as a negative kind of thing. That instability and

00:05:30.040 - 00:05:46.290

uncertainty, it threatens our security. There's a whole lot of terminology that we've actually developed around the word crisis. We talk about being in crisis mode. Crisis intervention, crisis response, crisis hotlines crisis management

00:05:46.290 - 00:05:57.760

, which by the way, I would say to you that at least from my perspective, more and more people who are leaders and particularly people who are leaders in the church are expected. Now it's one

00:05:57.760 - 00:06:11.980

of the things that is expected that we'd be good crisis managers as if you could possibly manage crisis in the first place. Think about what's going around around our world today, in Canada today, at least

00:06:11.980 - 00:06:28.440

in Ottawa, people woke up in crisis mode, that was distinctly different from what they woke up to yesterday. And so how do we respond midst of the crisis that are going on? What about us

00:06:28.440 - 00:06:39.790

, who are people of faith, who are followers of jesus? How do we respond to the inevitable , inevitable crises that happen in our personal lives, in our communities in our world? Is there anything

00:06:39.790 - 00:06:53.540

that we do that would be different? I've been really interested to observe some of the responses to the Ebola crisis. Speaking of another one, what it looks like in Western Africa, the images that we've

00:06:53.540 - 00:07:03.670

seen on our tv screens, the reports that we've gotten in Sierra Leone and Liberia where actually there are thousands of people dying and there are thousands of others who are infected and there's just not the kind of

00:07:03.670 - 00:07:16.400

medical means to take care of things is quite different from what it looks like here. Right? I read an article last week that piqued my interest. It was about the fiancee of thomas eric Duncan who

00:07:16.400 - 00:07:30.320

was the man who died in Dallas from Ebola. His fiancee's name is Louis Trow and she was quarantined for 21 days and that period has passed. She does not have Ebola. Nonetheless, she is now

00:07:30.320 - 00:07:48.750

struggling to find housing. The apartment where she had paid a deposit has now denied her residence employees that are at the texas health presbyterian Hospital where Duncan was treated have been refused access to restaurants in the area

00:07:48.760 - 00:08:05.470

and parents have kept their kids from going to school lest they by chance come into contact with Children of those who dealt with Duncan's family. It even affected the NFL. The new york Giants played in Dallas

00:08:05.470 - 00:08:13.740

last week, played the Dallas cowboys, but the players were actually quite concerned. One player saying the guys might think twice if they were planning on bringing their wives and families and the owner who is much

00:08:13.740 - 00:08:30.830

more pragmatic about it, said the cowboys are going to get it first. So it's to our advantage . What about us? People of faith, followers of jesus, How are we doing at responding to

00:08:30.830 - 00:08:43.560

the inevitable crises? And sometimes it just seems like we're just wrapped up in one big, long lasting , always their crisis. It's anything different about us . What about the crises going on in the church

00:08:45.640 - 00:08:58.800

on a large scale? We're all very familiar with here in North America. The continuing decline of our numbers, the growing number of people who describe themselves now as the nuns that are not affiliated with any

00:08:58.800 - 00:09:13.270

religious or faith tradition at all in the crisis. That's most on my heart and mind even today is the one that's going on in the church where I serve. Mm. It's not true for everybody else

00:09:13.270 - 00:09:28.260

I know, but for us, the actions taken a general assembly prompted a deep rift between members of our congregation and what I would have described you even just 6-8 months ago as a really rich, good

00:09:28.940 - 00:09:45.650

, profound fellowship in our church has been invaded by anger and accusation, by fear and frustration by the way nothing I learned in seminary prepared me for this kind of stuff that's going on in the church.

00:09:46.340 - 00:10:03.160

You're probably aware that in chinese, which that's what I should have used for the title in chinese. The word crisis is a combination of two symbols. Danger. An opportunity. Okay, I feel bad

00:10:03.640 - 00:10:16.200

that danger. Maybe you do as well as you think about the church as you, especially those that are you being prepared to go into the church as well as those you're teaching. For me personally,

00:10:16.200 - 00:10:30.710

I fear the potential fracturing of our congregation and along with it its loss of mission and witness. I sense a real danger in the way that people in our congregation have begun to look at each other a

00:10:30.710 - 00:10:41.850

little bit where just months ago, friends sitting down the pew from each other or across the aisle from each other would have given each other the benefit of the doubt on something that had been said. Now

00:10:41.850 - 00:10:54.770

it seems like every word is scrutinized. There is this great temptation among us I think to start dividing up about who's on which side look each other from the point of view of being a conservative or a

00:10:54.770 - 00:11:15.460

liberal rather than first as a follower, a disciple , a pilgrim. It's so tempting to use innuendos and accusations and exaggerations and be impatient and practice gossip and demonize people who are on the other side.

00:11:15.840 - 00:11:26.490

If paul were encountering anything close to this in the Church of Thessaloniki, I understand completely why he was concerned about giving evil afoot whole, why he went and said and admonished them to say, don't repay

00:11:26.490 - 00:11:43.160

evil with evil. From my perspective, as surely as jesus prayed for the unity of the church, there is an evil that would divide the church. Without a doubt, there is danger in crisis and

00:11:43.160 - 00:11:58.150

I'm not so sure that we're as good at looking for opportunity. It's been hard to calm people down enough to even think about what opportunity, but I am convinced that it is there. It takes faith

00:11:58.160 - 00:12:13.790

though to look at that. I'm convinced that there is right now a really profound opportunity to once again rediscover our Lord's heart, for the Church, for the world, for those who are inside the Church

00:12:13.790 - 00:12:28.420

and for those who are outside the Church, for the lost and the broken hearted and the weak. I think there is opportunity like never before to refine our mission, to expand our witness, to grow

00:12:28.420 - 00:12:41.490

in faith and maturity. I'm teaching a bible study on James right now and the opening chapters of that have been very profound to me again, where James is talking about you know this testing these trials that

00:12:41.490 - 00:12:56.640

you encounter. They come to prove your faith to build endurance and I like another translation that says it will bring your faith out into the open so it can show its true colors. I think we need

00:12:56.640 - 00:13:09.490

that you all are very familiar with. I can count on the fact that you know your scriptures well here. But part of what's also interesting to me that as we look at our larger story are larger

00:13:09.490 - 00:13:28.900

salvation and faith story. Isn't it interesting that sometimes it is God who seems to provoke crisis and God doing it among God's chosen people think about just for a moment, Jacob Vanessa, they had a good

00:13:28.900 - 00:13:39.390

system there. The firstborn basically if your second born is not so great, but if your firstborn, everybody knows how it works, the system works. Everybody goes by, why, why in the world

00:13:39.390 - 00:13:54.810

will God choose to flip flop that and think about some of the other things, the people that God chooses throughout the scriptures, who by God's own law are disqualified from the get go. And why did

00:13:54.810 - 00:14:09.960

God have Samuel anoint David while Saul was still king , would have been a whole lot easier to just wait. And why did God give license to the babylonians? If you will to overrun all of Israel

00:14:11.620 - 00:14:22.040

? And Jesus did the same thing. And dealing with the law, in dealing with the religious leaders of his own time, sort of made them force them into crisis because of the way that they were

00:14:22.040 - 00:14:33.780

treating the law and because of grace. And even Peter, why that dream, Peter could have gone along just well, leading some of the church that had started in Jerusalem. Why the dream? Why

00:14:33.780 - 00:14:54.390

go to Cornelius house? Why beg the problem of gentiles into the church? God seems to have a way of shaking up his people in the church. I wonder if that's what's going on with us.

00:14:56.040 - 00:15:16.010

Perhaps there is an incredible opportunity before us, If we will have eyes to see, to confront finally problems that we cannot solve on our own and to seek solutions from God for things that are clearly not

00:15:16.010 - 00:15:31.660

of our own making. If we are to proceed to live in a way that honors christ and honors one another, even in the midst of crisis, we need a way to orient ourselves to center ourselves

00:15:31.660 - 00:15:46.800

so that we remain open to what God is doing And all that leads us to why I have found first Thessalonians five so incredibly helpful. I think paul is writing to a church that is dealing with crisis

00:15:46.340 - 00:16:03.620

. They've got their own paralyzing fears and strangling anxieties . Without a doubt. There's conflicts over gentiles in their fellowship, in debilitating misconceptions about belief and practice . So paul admonishes them again with this sort of

00:16:03.620 - 00:16:17.440

no escape clause, no excuses, no exemptions, no if ands or buts this kind of command. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and

00:16:17.440 - 00:16:29.460

to all rejoice, always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances. I'm sure the verses familiar to you, but we're supposed to live this out, not just when the world is as it should be

00:16:30.140 - 00:16:45.230

or we'd like it to be and not just when we feel like it and not when it's convenient, perhaps more profoundly when we are in crisis. So three things for all of us to practice. I

00:16:45.230 - 00:16:59.730

know I'm preaching to the choir here, but three things that maybe we need to hear again, rejoice . What do you have to rejoice over today? We have this tendency to focus on all the negative

00:16:59.730 - 00:17:11.160

stuff at our staff meeting in a couple weeks ago , we're going around the table and we usually sort of just make sure everybody knows what they're doing. But on this particular day, for whatever reason,

00:17:11.160 - 00:17:22.220

it changed thankfully but Joey. The guy who is our youth minister talked about being at a camp and There were 50 students and one which for us was Gosh, there was something to rejoice over just there

00:17:22.220 - 00:17:33.940

. The way had 50 kids that went to this deal. But he talked about how and the bible study they were in genesis. And the leader spoke about that whole issue of hiding from God, which

00:17:33.940 - 00:17:49.140

somehow another had an effect on these kids such that they opened up when they got them back into small groups to actually encounter the one From whom no one can hide and the one before whom no secrets are

00:17:49.140 - 00:18:03.540

hid. And then we went around the table and walter. Who is our missions pastor told about being in Uganda and there was all kinds of troubles that they had on this particular trip. There was baggage

00:18:03.540 - 00:18:15.850

that was lost. There was confusion. There was people who got really sick this particular trip. And we're part of a church planning with the Presbyterian Church in Eastern Uganda. We always include a medical team

00:18:15.850 - 00:18:26.930

that goes in with them and we do a water well. And we've actually seen incredible results over that over 10 years that there's a dramatic increase in the health and people for just having clean water. But

00:18:26.930 - 00:18:36.470

the other thing that we did that was, we've done this the last several years, but it's just sort of an add on attack on. We've given out mosquito nets. Well, walter had this wonderful

00:18:36.470 - 00:18:52.360

video of this woman getting a mosquito debt. Unbelievable rejoicing. She held it up and she danced around and she sang and she shouted for a mosquito net . Of course, that's a lifesaving tool over there

00:18:55.840 - 00:19:10.020

. But what moves you like that? What do you have to rejoice over? Well, one thing for sure is what we heard in Isaiah 43. I love how God speaks to Israel and this one

00:19:10.020 - 00:19:23.270

the one who created you, the one who formed you. I have called you by name. You are mine and you are precious in God's sight. We can rejoice over that as individuals and as churches

00:19:26.540 - 00:19:38.260

. And it goes on to say when you pass through deep waters and when you walk through fire. Eugene Peterson translators, when you're between a rock and a hard place, God is with us, we

00:19:38.260 - 00:19:49.770

can rejoice over that. And even if that isn't enough, you can think of if you still can't think of something to rejoice over, look around because there are most definitely ways that you can learn to

00:19:49.770 - 00:20:02.030

rejoice through others. That in and of itself requires a little bit of a change because we tend to compete and compare. But last summer I had a chance to have a sabbatical. And part of what

00:20:02.030 - 00:20:15.400

we did was to take do a portion of the camino de santiago in spain the way of ST James and one of the people that we met was a man named Milton from brazil. If you've ever gone

00:20:15.400 - 00:20:26.150

on that, you know that you tend to get to know people more slowly on that because you're all walking and everybody tends to end up staying somewhat closer , You sort of leap frog each other as you

00:20:26.150 - 00:20:36.690

rest and somebody goes by you. But for several days we had actually met Milton and he'd gone past us. And the reason that I remember this is because he limped. But it took several days to

00:20:36.690 - 00:20:45.520

sort of hear the whole story as we ran into him and ended up eating with him one night. And the whole story finally came out that he had had this very strange infection that had found lodging in

00:20:45.520 - 00:20:59.680

his brain and it paralyzed his left side and I couldn't walk for a while. And eventually they did surgery and there was a lengthy recovery and his work on his left side started to work much better.

00:20:59.680 - 00:21:10.700

And one of the great cheerleaders for him had been his father, his father was there every step of the way, kind of encouraging and challenging going and he challenged him then to do something beyond what he

00:21:10.700 - 00:21:19.560

felt capable of doing. And so the two of them had come up with this idea of walking the camino de santiago together. This would be well beyond what Milton ever expected he could do. And then

00:21:19.570 - 00:21:37.290

unexpectedly another crisis. His father died. But eight months later there he was on camino to honor his father to challenge himself. When we watched him walk it was slow, it was hard. It was

00:21:37.290 - 00:21:48.350

obviously painful for him at times, but he never complained, which was remarkable because everybody else that we talked to and including ourselves. You have something to complain about at the end of the day. Your

00:21:48.350 - 00:22:00.910

feet to your knees, something. Every day though when we saw melton and got a chance to talk to me and say, I am so tired, but I am so happy. Every step was like

00:22:00.910 - 00:22:18.110

a triumph for him. The completion of every stage , a cause for joy. When we arrived in Santiago, there's this pilgrims mass that is really quite dramatic by chance. Again, we happen to be

00:22:18.120 - 00:22:32.020

sitting and a pew right behind Milton as big as that cathedral is. I'm pretty sure we could have sat anywhere and not missed him because he was the one that tears were just streaming down his face the

00:22:32.020 - 00:23:00.950

whole time and they were tears of joy and our joy was so much greater for having watched and cheered and celebrated with Milton practice rejoicing. It's always says paul and pray without ceasing. I don't know about

00:23:00.950 - 00:23:12.710

you but I'm a pastor and all that but I still find prayer mysterious and difficult. It's not the thing that comes easiest for me. I am aware that it is not our last resort but supposed to

00:23:12.710 - 00:23:22.720

be our first response. And I have found help a lot from people like on right now and ran across the thing that he said not too long ago , he said why should I spend an hour in

00:23:22.720 - 00:23:32.160

prayer? When do I do nothing during that time ? But think about people I'm angry with and people who are angry with me. Books I should read in books I should write and thousands of other silly

00:23:32.160 - 00:23:44.960

things that grab my mind for a moment, thankfully he gave an answer to that, he said, The answer is because God is greater than my mind and my heart and we could add to that.

00:23:44.960 - 00:24:02.760

Then my crisis or my concern or my worry. What is really happening in the house of prayer, he says is not measurable in terms of human success or failure. That's very liberating to me, pray

00:24:02.760 - 00:24:15.420

without ceasing we do it first simply to be faithful . If the first command really is to love the Lord, our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. Gosh, it just

00:24:15.420 - 00:24:30.500

makes sense to be in conversation, doesn't it? The question of whether prayer is helpful or useful or practical or fruitful is really irrelevant in some ways, thankfully it is all those things, but it's really

00:24:30.500 - 00:24:48.150

about loving God and staying connected. Can you think of anything that is beyond the scope of prayer? Pray without ceasing. Pray for my wife and my kids in our church and our session and our staff

00:24:48.150 - 00:25:07.950

. I pray for wisdom and sound thinking and patients to pray without ceasing and finally to give thanks in all circumstances. What do you have to be thankful for? Sometimes it's so brutally honest. But the

00:25:07.960 - 00:25:21.680

key to this part to me is that word all give thanks in all circumstances. Sarah Young says that we are supposed to give thanks for our struggles. I find it hard to be authentic sometimes in praying

00:25:21.680 - 00:25:37.260

that but I do believe that gratitude enables us to perceive God more clearly. Someone else told me that gratitude is the best antidote they know for anxiety. It confirms and affirms God's goodness, john Calvin said

00:25:37.260 - 00:25:48.960

it is the chief end of Godliness. I leave you with one last story and I have a friend . His name is David. He lost his 25 year old son two years ago. His son's name

00:25:48.960 - 00:26:00.440

was Patrick. He was in a training accident with the marines. He was working to be a helicopter pilot. Patrick grew up in our church. Everybody knew him. He was one of those kids that

00:26:00.440 - 00:26:11.740

was involved in just about everything from mission trips to all the other stuff, helped out and worshiped. He was smart, he was fun, he was a good athlete, he was a natural leader,

00:26:11.740 - 00:26:21.170

he was one of those really exceptional kids. He went to the Naval Academy and at the end of that decided that he wanted to go to the marines so that he could fly helicopters. And the accident

00:26:21.540 - 00:26:37.590

that happened happened in a swimming pool, not doing something that would be seen as heroic. And there were divers that were right there. They can't even explain to this day what exactly happened that when it

00:26:37.590 - 00:26:53.450

happened and he was underwater, the divers got him out immediately, they transfer to the hospital. They were able to revive his breathing and his heart, but not his brain and he died. It was

00:26:53.450 - 00:27:06.080

and has been a deep crisis of faith for David and his wife, carol and the rest of their family. Two years ago, there was a group of guys in our church and they included me that

00:27:06.080 - 00:27:17.130

began to just have breakfast regularly with David. They made me promise that I wouldn't do a bible study or anything, which I had no intention to do anyway. But it was really only to get together

00:27:17.130 - 00:27:26.950

and to allow David to talk if he felt like it or not, or just to be with him . And through all that, David has really opened up with us at times about his own struggles with

00:27:26.950 - 00:27:41.840

all this. And we met last thursday again. Only this time, there was another man in our group. His name is Larry, whose brother had died unexpectedly and it was very abrupt and it was

00:27:41.840 - 00:27:52.240

awful. David really has struggled to talk about this , but he began talking with Larry and when he began talking, I thought, oh, boy, I'm not sure that it's going to be helpful because

00:27:52.240 - 00:28:02.500

he was talking about the fact that the hurt never goes away, that the questions never seem to have any answers. That he's been frustrated and angry with God, that it has drug him down, that

00:28:02.500 - 00:28:12.490

he's sort of lost his fire in the belly. But then he started to tell the story that just two weeks ago, one of Patrick's high school friends had stopped by their house with this stack of letters

00:28:12.500 - 00:28:25.160

that Patrick had written way back when they were in high school. And then also this young man also went into the military and they had continued to share letters and he said, I was just unpacking some

00:28:25.160 - 00:28:33.550

stuff. Found these letters thought you might want to read them. And David said that he's done all kinds of things. But he started to read through those letters and they were the kind of letters that

00:28:34.340 - 00:28:45.920

a guy writes his buddy and not his parents, but telling about all this stuff that was going on in his life and all these funny things and all these struggles and things about girls and things about being

00:28:45.920 - 00:28:55.360

in the military and all the rest of it. And David got to the end of reading those letters and he said for the first time in a long time, I felt something that I haven't felt.

00:28:56.240 - 00:29:15.670

They made me feel so grateful. He said. So David's last word of advice to larry in the midst of his loss was find something to be thankful for. Well there it is. Giving thanks in

00:29:15.670 - 00:29:30.170

all circumstances begin small if you need to. I'm really grateful today for good coffee for my dog. And the way that she greets me when I walk in the door for being here with you today,

00:29:30.940 - 00:29:45.260

we're getting a little bit of a break from my usual routine for the way that my wife raises her eyebrows and gives me that look when I've said something really stupid for the privilege of being in ministry as

00:29:45.260 - 00:30:00.410

hard as it is sometimes. And I am thankful . I can say it now for you and your willingness to respond to God's call and what you do for the larger church. So I invite you.

00:30:00.410 - 00:30:15.400

I challenge you in the midst of the inevitable crises that may come to you personally or in your churches or in the world, take up these three things as a way to orient you to center you to

00:30:15.400 - 00:30:25.900

keep you open to what God is doing. No excuses, no exceptions. No if ands or buts rejoice. Always pray without ceasing, give thanks in