God's Fingerprints

Photo by Kolby Milton on Unsplash

Yesterday, our congregation hosted a big, annual Christmas party for clients with the local hospital system's mental health treatment services. This has everything you could want in a holiday shindig: piles of food and plenty of desserts to go around, a visit from Santa Claus, caroling, and kids playing elf and passing out every gift off your list. Elvis even shows up and sings (that's when some spontaneous dancing broke out this year). 

It's a really joyful time.

The book of Acts is the story of the news about Jesus crossing the borders of Judea and reaching to the ends of the earth (1:8). At first, the apostles are preaching to fellow Jews, and so their presentation of the gospel is bursting at the seams with Old Testament references. Peter spends 25 verses preaching and teaching on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, and 11 of those 25 verses are direct quotations from the Old Testament. That's because his audience knew the scriptures, and they understood themselves as the children of Abraham, followers of Moses who were awaiting a "Son of David" savior. This was their story.

Richard Beck has pointed out that, in Acts 14, for the very first time, we see the gospel preached to an audience made up entirely of pagans who've never heard of Abraham, Moses, or David. That isn't their story. There are no Jews or God-fearing Gentiles in the crowd at Lystra—these people worshipped Zeus, and Hermes. 

So how does Paul introduce his unbelieving listeners to the God of the Jews?

Even though these folks don't know the scriptures, this God, Paul insists, hasn't left himself without a witness. "He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” (14:17) The kindness of the Lord that we experience in our ordinary lives witnesses to God. It's the testimony telling the world about the God of the Bible. 

How do we experience God's kindness? What are the specific things Paul mentions that testify to God? He points to rain from heaven, crops in their seasons, food—and what else? 

Joy. 

Joy testifies to the one who made heaven and earth. 

Joy is evidence of a God who has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future. 

Joy points us towards the God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him wouldn't perish, but have everlasting life.

Joy is God's fingerprint. It reminds us that, though we may not see him with our eyes, God's been here. God's at work. And God's work, God's desire for us, is that we would have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10), that our joy may be complete (John 15:11).

And just think: whenever you can bring some of that joy to another person, you're working side by side with our Lord, making, even in just a small way, the kingdom come and God's will be done on earth, the way it is in heaven. That's what happened at our Christmas party yesterday. Elvis impersonators, tambourines, banana pudding, and fried chicken—some days that's exactly what the Kingdom of God looks like. That's how you know, God's been here.

I hope you experience real joy this Christmas, that you see God's fingerprints all around you. I also hope that you and I will start to wonder: how can I bring joy to someone else this holiday season? How could I leave God's fingerprint on someone's life this Christmas?

You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Hope for the Hopeless

Do you remember Hagar, from the book of Genesis?

Hagar was a slave girl of Abraham’s wife Sarah. As the years passed and their promised child still didn’t arrive, the couple started getting nervous about God’s timetable, and Sarah started scheming: Hagar would sleep with Abraham and conceive an heir for the octogenarian. Her plan worked too well: Hagar, when she realized she was pregnant, “no longer respected” her barren mistress (16:4). Sarah, in response, “dealt harshly” with her (16:6), causing the young woman to run away.

Now Hagar, a slave girl forced to bear her master’s child, is wandering alone in the desert, with no idea where to find shelter or provisions and no place to make a home for her son. It’s hard to imagine a more desperate, hopeless situation for a young girl to find herself in.

And that’s when it happened. “The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur.” (Gen 16:7) When she must have thought all was lost, Hagar was found. I love that it tells you exactly where she was when that angel appeared: beside the spring along the road to Shur. I can just imagine Hagar telling the story, ‘I was on the road to Shur, and I got to the spring—you know the place—and that’s when I heard this voice…’

The angel assured her that she could return home and told her,

“You will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress…”

Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” (16:11, 13)

In Hebrew, “the God who sees me” (verse 13) is a name: El-roi. That’s who the Lord was to Hagar. The God who found her, heard her cry, and saw her.

Hagar’s story is an example of something we see a lot in scripture: how God arrives just at the moment when you feel most lost and alone, when things seem most hopeless, right when you’re tempted to despair. There and then is when you hear the voice of God.

A vulnerable girl roaming, parched and pregnant, through the desert.

Slaves wailing as their Egyptian masters murder their newborns.

A fisherman out of his boat and out of his depth, flailing in the waves, crying out for a Savior.

A body tattered with nail, spear, and thorn holes lying in a pitch-black tomb, the entrance stonewalled shut.

And that’s when God shows up.

That’s because, no matter how dark and desperate your circumstances are, God is El-roi. The Lord sees you and hears you. And, because God is El-roi, the God who sees, there is always hope.

You can listen to this devotional right here:

Redefining "Enemies"

This past Sunday, I preached about peace and what it would take to bring a little more peace to our everyday lives and relationships. One of the scriptural passages I shared was Romans 12:20-21:

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
    If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
    burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Another verse we heard came from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, red letters straight from the mouth of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (5:43-44)

Both of these scriptures, you probably noticed, address the topic of enemies. Paul and Jesus give us a new, Christian definition of what an enemy is: an enemy is someone you love. It’s someone you do good to, caring for them and supporting them when they're needy. It’s someone you pray for.

That’s what an enemy is, for a Christian.

One of the sicknesses plaguing the Church in America today, I believe, is that we treat people with whom we disagree like they are enemies, and then we don’t treat those enemies like we are Christians. We identify this person or that group as our enemies, but we act like enemies aren’t people we’re supposed to care for and support and pray for and do good for. We act like an enemy is not someone you love. Instead, we embrace the world’s definition of "enemy": someone to be disrespected, loathed, and thwarted at every turn. Like I heard another pastor say once, the problem is not that Christians fight—it’s that we don’t fight like Christians. That’s a problem because, no matter how righteous you believe your cause is, it’s an unbiblical and unfaithful approach to your opponents.

If my faith consistently does not affect the way I treat people who don’t like me, and I don’t like them, if it doesn’t affect how I talk to and talk about people with whom I have profound disagreements, then it’s just a Sunday morning faith. I’m not denying myself and taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23). I’m not opening my heart up to the Lord—only the parts of it that he won’t try to rearrange.

But, this Christmas, the Prince of Peace is calling us to follow him.

Are you using scripture’s definition of "enemy," or the world’s?

Who is that enemy you have not loved?

What would it look like to do good to them this week? What would be the first step towards praying for them?

How is Jesus challenging you to be a faithful, Christian enemy to someone today?

You can listen to today's devotional right here: