Dulles Family Life Church

There’s a lyric in one of the rock supergroup U2’s songs that goes, “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”  I think that song may define a generation, indeed, generations, many members of whom are sitting in church fellowships week after week.  I don’t mean that in derogatory way, just that so many are pursuing or looking for a religion rather than a Person.
     Peter and John took the message of Christ to the Jews as they gathered to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Part of what the Templegoers were there for was to wait upon the promised Messiah.  What the apostles told them was, “The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus.”  They were in church, waiting anxiously for a Savior that they were completely unaware had already come.  The Promise had been given, but they didn’t know it.
     In John 5, Jesus Himself is talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, and she says to Him,

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I think every preacher struggles to some degree over the unchanging attitudes and lives of so many of those whose care he’s entrusted with.  After investing so much of themselves into bringing to them a message of hope, freedom, and intimacy with God, they continue to see so many listen, then leave unchanged.  The Word of God is all powerful, yet it seems to have no power for them.  Why?  How can this be?
     I think, in part at least, the answer can be found in Exodus 6:9.  Moses has been sent by the Father to bring a message to the people of Israel, now slaves in Egypt for 400 years.  The enemy, through the person of Pharoah, is fighting against them bitterly.  The verse reads, “So Moses told the people what the Lord said, but they wouldn’t listen anymore.  They had become too discouraged by the increasing burden of their slavery.“ 
    It was so difficult for the people to see a life of freedom through the eyes of lives that had never known anything but slavery and bondage.  When Moses first came to them, they felt hope, but because the circumstances of their lives hadn’t changed, indeed had gotten worse, they had fallen into despair.  They couldn’t be transformed within, until the conditions of their outward were lives were themselves transformed.  I think this is the case with so many sitting in churches everywhere week after week.  They have wanted the Lord to do something outside of them, make their lives better, and after His having done so, they’ll feel better, they’ll be better.  If that hasn’t happened, they continue to sit in darkness, even when His light is shining all around them, longing to pierce their inner lives with it lifechanging power.  And the burden of their slavery increases week after week.
   I love the way the translation The Message reads Matthew 11:28.  “Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion?  Come to Me.  Get away with Me and recover your life.“  I think this scripture and invitation from His heart resonates with us, but the question is, is the life He calls  to recover the life we wish we had, or the one He created us for?  There is a great difference.  The first is almost always built upon good circumstances and personal and family well being.  The second is bulit upon Him.  Nothing

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There’s an elderly couple in our fellowship who are very dear to me.  I try to stop by and visit with them at least once a month.  For the last several years they have been beset with health issues, particularly the husband.  I always seek to encourage, give hope, do something to ease the very real physical pain and suffering they are both experiencing.  This is what a pastor is supposed to do, yet always, I feel as if I’ve failed in this.  They are not improving, and seem to be getting worse.  
     This situation, and so many others like it, are so very confusing to those who follow Christ.  We feel, believe, that if we are faithful followers of Him, that somehow, life is going to “work.”  Things should, and will go well.  If there are problems and troubles, we need only follow the guidelines in His word, and God, as He is required, will straighten out the crooked, and make things go so much more smoothly.  In short, if we’re faithful, life should work for us.  Marriages will be healthy in every way, and so will our kids.  If we follow the “rules” so to speak, God will work all things for our good, and if there is any suffering, He’ll see to it that it is short lived at best.  The problem is, what do we do with people like my elderly couple, who to my knowledge, have been faithful, have “followed the rules?”  What do we do with those who have done the same in their marriages, child raising, jobs and ministries?  Do we consign them to a list of those who just didn’t “get it right,” or is there something we’re missing, and missing in a very big way?
     Larry Crabb, in his book, “Soul Talk,” tells the story of his father and mother’s deteriorating health and quality of life in their final years.  His mother had a severe case of Alzheimer’s, and his father an eventual confinement to a wheelchair, and inability to even lift a fork to his mouth.  Both had been faithful, dynamic believers for more than 50 years.  Crabb, in anger, wanted to know how God could allow this.  God never answered, but He did open his eyes to see through a testomony of his father a month before he died.  His dad had had a vision where an evil looking man came into his room at night, telling him he was going to destroy him.  He left the room, and his father was terrified.  More, he knew God could prevent this, but was not going to do so.  Then, suddenly, a great peace and realization came over him.
He realized that though this demonic being could kill his body, he could never destroy his soul, and therefore, never destroy him.  The evil man did return, but his father laughed at him, calling him powerless.  The being, with a look of hatred, left him.  In this, both Crabb and his father had their eyes open to a much greater reality than having a life that works well.  There is an intimacy and presence with Him that we may realize that life’s heartaches and suffering can never take from us.  There is a reality to be found in Him that no amount of loss or pain can cause us to lose, and there is a greater reality awaiting us beyond this world that this world itself can never offer.  The best really is yet to come, but it will never be found in this world, but in the one yet to come.  I think it is this truth and knowledge that makes us, as Romans tells us, “more than conquerors.”
     Writer and pastor Mark Buchanan said, “God tells us in our suffering, ‘Come to Me….Look to Me….

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Mark Batterson, in his book, “Wild Goose Chase,” writes of Moses’ encounter with God in Exodus 4, where the Father has called him to lead His people out of Egypt.  In verse 2, the Lord asks Moses, “What do you have in your hand?  ‘A shepherd’s staff,’ Moses replied.  ‘Throw it down on the ground,’ the Lord told him.  So Moses threw it down….”  Batterson writes, “When Moses threw down his staff at God;s command, he was letting go of that which gave him his identity and security, in order to find a deeper, greater security and identity in Him.”
    So many of us, particularly those of us in ministry, get our identity, even our security, in what we do, and in the “title” that goes along with that, but I think on some level, we’re all prone to this.  We end up thinking of ourselves as pastor, teacher, worship leader, group leader, tech specialist, valued employee.  Or, on a more personal level, husband, wife, father, mother.  It’s in these jobs and titles that we find our identity, and a great deal of our sense of security.  They tell us who we are, and give us a sense of well being.  On a human level, this is understandable, but, what happens to us if we should “lose” these titles or places that give us that sense of identity?  What if our own particular “shepherd’s staff” that we’ve been holding in our hand, is no longer in our hand?  What happens to us then, not only emotionally and mentally, but spiritually as well.
   For me, it happened when I lost my marriage and ministry and all seemingly in one “breath.”  For most of the last decade I had been a pastor, and a husband.  That was my shepherd’s staff, and it was how I thought of myself.  There was a real sense of security in that.  And then, all of a sudden, I was not.  My marriage had crumbled, and I had to step away from the pastorate.  I’d been so sure of who and what I was, but now, that was gone.  If I wasn’t a pastor and husband anymore, what was I?  I have to confess, I really felt like a non-person, and my selfesteem took a major hit.
   Can you identify with this?  Have you ever had a place in life that gave you not only a sense of identity and security, but of confidence, yet, somehow, it was lost to you?  A lost and beloved ministry, or a lost and cherished job.  A lost marriage and family.  You once knew, were sure of just who you were, but now, now you wonder just who am I, and where am I, and in the midst of it, you very likely are wondering just where is He, and how could He allow it to happen?

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There are a couple of passages from John that are on my heart today and that I’d like to share.  The first is found in chapter 1.  John the Baptist has told two of his disciples, one of whom was Andrew, the brother of Peter, that they were to become Jesus’ disciples.  They began to follow Him, and verses 38-39 read, “Jesus looked around and saw them following.  ‘What do you want?’ He asked them.  They replied, ‘Teacher, where are You staying?’ ‘Come and see,’ He said.”
     Now, what I’m becoming more and more aware of is that though Christ invites me each day, really from moment to moment, to “Come and see,” my desire is more often to “Come and get…..then go.”  In truth, so much of my prayer life, ministry life, life in Him, has been more about trying to find a way to get Him to give me what I want, or feel I need.  He invites me, and you, to come and see Who He really is, where it is He abides.  He invites us to come to where He is, and not to “fill out our order,” but to stay there with Him.  In our obsession with getting, we never really see, and so we don’t really want to stay.
With the getting, we feel the goal has been reached.  He’s ”ministered” to us.  We’ve received our “loaves and fishes” from His hand, and that is the great tragedy.  We think our fulfillment is to be found in the loaves and fishes, the food of this world.  We fail to see that our real nurture is to be found in Him.  We think the loaves and fishes are the highest good, and we never see that He offers us food that is eternal.  As a result, though well fed with loaves and fishes, so many of us are spiritually starving.
     The second passage from John is found in the 4th chapter in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.  This is a rich chapter, but the words that speak to me are in verse 10, where Christ tells her, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water.”  If we only knew.  Recently I preached on Acts 3, and the story of Peter and John and the crippled beggar at the gate to the Temple.  Trapped in his lameness, and unable to enter into the inner court, he felt that his life needs could be met with the silver and gold he sought from them.  He only knew life in the outer court.  For him, life’s needs were met in the silver and gold, in the loaves and fishes.  If he only knew.  How many of us are “trapped” in the outer court just as he was?  If we only knew the gift the Father truly longs to give us in Christ.  If we would just truly come and see……and stay.
    Might it be time for us to renounce the hold of the loaves and fishes upon our lives?  Might it not be time for us to really come and see, and receive the true gift of God, the water and bread of life….His life?  Our hunger for the loaves and fishes is a hunger that never satisfies.  We only end up feeling we must have more, and in ever increasing amounts.  Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether.”  Such water is not only what I need, it is becoming more and more what I want.  How about you?  Will you have a loaves and fishes life, or a life in Him?  If we only knew.

Blessings,

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