Monthly Archives: October 2019

Don’t you hate evaluations? October 28, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I remember throughout my military career going through my calendars searching for those events that would help me remember things I had done that I could list as accomplishments for my efficiency reports. I was never very good at keeping diaries or journals then. I’m hit and miss now when it comes to what I’ve done. But I would go through my calendars of ToDo lists and try to figure out what might appeal to promotion boards or schools or other entities that used those reports for different considerations.

I hated the process then, and I hate the process now. I’m delighted to be mostly retired and not have to worry about those reports anymore. Except I do. Every time I travel to another installation to help in the training of a medical unit, which I do part-time, now, I end up searching through those ToDo lists finding the good and the bad to create the reports that go to the clients I serve and the men and women who hire me.

It seems we never get away from evaluations. All through life, we find ourselves evaluated on something. Someone has something to say about our performance, our behavior, our personality, our wealth, our mood, something. No one is left alone without some evaluation. We all face the music, and we all probably dislike it to some degree or another.

Evaluations can be useful, though. They help us learn our weaknesses and give us opportunities to improve in areas we might not see in ourselves. They help us understand better the desires and directions our boss wants us to go instead of traveling in our own sometimes misguided ways. Evaluations can inform us in many ways if we let them.

Jesus gave such an evaluation in a parable. A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. I sometimes wonder if Jesus’ simple stories were really stories or real events with unidentified people to protect the names of the guilty. Many of them are so true to life. I can visualize them happening then or today in our society.

Today, the one, in particular, I’m thinking of comes from the eyewitnesses Luke heard from recorded in chapter 18 of the gospel by his name. It goes like this:

18:9 He [Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (NIV)

Jesus draws an interesting comparison between the two. He talks about both of their prayers. The Pharisee tells God, “I’ve kept most of the 612 laws we’ve put on the backs of your people.” If Jesus had told the story with the whole prayer, the Pharisee would probably list 600 of those 612 laws he had not broken. He was a ninety-eight percenter — top two percent of his class.

The prayer did not impress the Father according to his Son.

If I could paraphrase Jesus a little in debriefing the Pharisee after the long-winded prayer he probably gave, Jesus might have said something like, ” Hey, bud. You’re right. You’re a two-percenter, but you got the position wrong. The Father put you at the bottom two percent, not the top. I hope you enjoyed listening to that beautiful oration you gave yourself because it got no farther than your own ears, according to the Father. And I should know, we’re on pretty good speaking terms. Oh, and by the way, he gave me the grade book, and I say you just flunked the course. Sorry about that.”

The tax collector, on the other hand, couldn’t say he got anything right. He just knew he needed help if he had any chance at redeeming his filthy, sin-ridden soul. He recognized where he stood before God. The tax collector understood that no matter how good he tried to be, God was so much better, and we are so far from true righteousness that our only hope lies in his mercy. So he pleads for it.

Who gets the crown in the end? The guy the Pharisee never expected. The one who broke all the rules. The tax collector who couldn’t even lift his face off the floor because he felt so unworthy to even be in God’s temple.

But aren’t the rules important? When you’re a toddler and mom has to tell you to keep your hands away from the stove, or you’ll get burned, the rules are important. When dad says, “Don’t play in the street, you’ll get run over.” Rules are important. But Jesus summed up those 612 laws that crushed God’s people in two simple commands. He told us to listen to him. All authority rests in him, not in the Mosaic Law. So do the two things he said to do. What are his two rules? Love God and love others with everything you’ve got.

If we could just catch his message and do those two things as his followers, what a difference we could make in the world. Oh, and that love others part, that means everyone. He said to go into all the world. I think that covers all races, all nations, all religions, all political parties, all. We are to love all. Do we have to agree with them? No, Jesus didn’t, either. But he loved them. And as people saw the love in his heart and the love in his disciples, they wanted what they saw. It changed the world. What happened to us? We started hating this group or that group. We began demanding people follow our rules. We wanted everyone to act and talk and look like us instead of loving people and letting God handle the rest.

Sounds rather like that Pharisee’s prayer, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s about time we who call ourselves Christian look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Do I love others the way Jesus loves me?” If not, I have some work to do – on my knees.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Time to Teach, October 21, 20190

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I learned early in my military career that one of my responsibilities was to train my replacement. Eventually, I would leave my position through transfer, promotion, or at some point, everyone departs the service. If I failed to train someone to take my place, the service would suffer, and soldiers would suffer. Not that I was indispensable or anyone else was, but we had a responsibility to make sure none of us were by ensuring we had someone ready in the wings to take our place.

Paul knew the importance of doing the same as he embarked on his missionary journeys. So he groomed Timothy and Titus to take his place in the early churches he formed in his mission work. He knew he would need a replacement at some point, and the way things had been going for him, that time would probably come sooner rather than later. He’d been shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, run out of town, and imprisoned. He knew his days were numbered. So, while in prison, Paul penned instructions to his two proteges.

My instructions to the officers that came behind me centered on how to treat soldiers, how to make decisions, how to carry out the tasks given by higher commands, how to determine priorities of work with limited resources. Some of the training I provided to those who would come after me in the service I hoped would save lives on future battlefields, and as I’ve heard from some of them and read accounts of current conflicts, I think some of those lessons paid off.

Most of the training I passed on didn’t make it into documents that I expect to survive for centuries, though. In fact, if they last another decade, I will be astonished. Those bits of knowledge will last a season and be gone. Some will trickle down another generation, maybe two, but then warfare will change, tactics and doctrine will evolve, and the lessons passed on thirty years ago will seem pretty meaningless to anyone who might care to hear about them in another generation.

But Paul’s words to Timothy are a completely different story. We read them, memorize them, absorb them into our being. We do so because we understand the depth and truth of his words. He writes these words to Timothy in the second letter addressed to him in the New Testament:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14-17)(NIV)

We know from these few sentences, Timothy was a student of God’s Word. He learned from his mother, Lois. He studied from Paul. He poured through the scriptures personally to discover all he could about the God he served and loved. What we often forget as we read these words from Paul, is that the “scriptures able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” did not include any from our New Testament. That should cause us to give pause to any who might discount the Old Testament as unimportant to the Christian life or its statutes as ancient and no longer applicable to modern society.

What can scriptures do for us? Timothy knew, and Paul reminds him. They teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness. And why are those attributes important to followers of Jesus? Because he gave us a mission. He told us to go and make disciples. Teaching them all the things others taught us in his name. How can followers of Jesus share knowledge if no one shared with them in the first place? It goes back to what I learned as a new Army officer. I need to start preparing my replacement. If I don’t, there may not be a replacement when one is required.

Have you thought about that in your Christian walk? What if you were the only link to carrying the message of Christ to the next generation? How well has your replacement learned to place his or her trust in God based on what you taught? Is the next generation of disciples ready to pass on what you know because you taught them well?

The next words from Paul often used to provide the charge to ministers really apply to all of us who follow Christ. Jesus didn’t differentiate between any of those gathered on the mountain when he gave the command to go and make disciples. He told all of them the same thing. What Paul told Timothy, reminds me of the importance of my role in sharing what I learned from others. Paul continues his letter with these words:

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)(NIV)

It tells me that whenever I have the opportunity, I must be prepared to correct, rebuke, encourage, teach with great patience and careful instruction. The time when people will not want to hear sound doctrine came a long time ago. They didn’t want to hear it from Timothy or Paul or even Jesus. With all we see around us, those statements could not be any more accurate today. People run to what they want to hear instead of the hard truth of God’s Word.

Ignoring the truth in his word does not fix our sin problem, though, any more than ignoring cancer will repair those runaway cells in our body. We must do something about the disease. When we find out about cancer, we go to the oncologist and seek a cure. When we find out about sin, if we are to find release and relief, we must go to God and seek a cure. Listen to Paul. Do the work God calls each of us to do in reproducing disciples through sharing what others entrusted to us. It’s how God’s kingdom grows. It’s plan A and surprisingly, he never developed plan B. It’s up to you and me to make it happen.

What Was That Song? October 14, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

My church is going through change, as are most churches across the country. In fact, if your church isn’t, it is probably dying. It’s part of the life cycle of every living organism, including churches. If they are not changing, evolving, adapting to the needs of those around them, they are no longer necessary and just go away.

The problem is that some of us who have been around for a long time would really like things to be like they were when we came into the church a long time ago. We want what brought us in. We love the old preaching, the old furnishings, the old music. Ah, there it is. The one thing that seems to divide more people than any other single item in most congregations. The music.

But we can’t go back. Do I like the newest stuff on the market? Let me read you a letter to a pastor to which I think some of you might relate.

“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it. Last Sunday’s new hymn – if you can call it that – sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this – in God’s house! – don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need”

And another:

“What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn. Last Sunday’s was particularly unnerving. The tune was unsingable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.”^[1]

Surprisingly, these letters date back to 1863 and 1890 and opposing the introduction of the songs, “Just As I Am” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” See, we don’t like things to change. Yesterday’s hymns disrupted centuries of chants, which disrupted centuries of psalms. Today’s praise choruses disrupt our couple of hundred years of hymns. We just don’t like change. We like things the way they’ve always been.

As I said earlier, though, change is necessary if we survive. Without change, we die. And we can’t go back to the way things were. The past is gone, and the past can never return. As much as we might long for “the good old days,” they probably weren’t as good as we thought. For sure, they were not good for many, as the letter quoted early pointed out. We also have a tendency to remember only the good and not the bad when we remember things dear to us.

The Israelites had the same problem. The northern kingdom went into exile in the eighth century BC because of their apostasy. You’d think the southern kingdom would begin to listen to their prophets but think again. Two hundred years later, the southern kingdom fell to Nebuchadnezzar’s army, and the nation’s most notable, wealthy, and young found themselves carted off from their homeland into exile.

The exiles longed to return home. They bellyached to God about their pitiful plight. They complained about losing everything. The Israelites prayed and whined and cried. Then God sent a message through Jeremiah that the Israelites didn’t really want to hear. The words come from a letter to the elders that we find in Jeremiah chapter 29. We like to use verse 11 out of context and use it to talk about the prosperity God will bring to us. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”(NIV)

But in front of those words, Jeremiah had a little more to say from the Lord. God had plans, alright. They would stay in exile for the next 70 years. His plans didn’t include a short stay in Babylon and then freedom from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. God didn’t intend for the Israelites to own the promised land again for a long time. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 1948 that Israel would be self-governed once more.

Before verse 11, which we use so poorly, Jeremiah wrote these words: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”(NIV)

So what does that have to do with music and change? A lot. God told the Israelites to be content in the place he put them. They didn’t like Babylon, but they would be there for a long time. They didn’t like the food, but if they didn’t eat what grew there, they would starve. They didn’t like living under the oppression of a pagan government, but that government offered them protection from other marauding nations.

I’m sure those who came from Jerusalem would love to go back to their old ways of doing things, but it just wasn’t possible. God said to get on with life and worship him where they were. Give him praise and honor and glory where they lived to enable those around them to see that he was still the unchangeable God of all creation.

So what does that mean for you and me as we face changes in the church? I don’t like the music. So what? If God can reach out to the next generation through music they are more comfortable hearing, then that must become my favorite worship music in the services. It’s not about me, it’s about worshipping God in the community of believers. I want more of the next generation present in those services. If Lazy Boy recliners become the next thing instead of pews, that’s okay. Do I like it? No. But if it helps bring the next generation to worship, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. It’s not about me, it’s about worshipping God in the community of believers. I want more of the next generation present. Do I like sandals and shorts and t-shirts as the standard dress in worship? I didn’t grow up that way and think it’s okay to dress for God the way we would dress for work, but if more of the next generation will worship with me in sandals and shorts and t-shirts, the dress code doesn’t matter as much as the presence of God in our service. We would probably be offended by Jesus’ appearance if he walked in the door, too. Ancient Mideastern clothing would be a tad out of line for us today.

So what is important? Not the style of music. Not the traditions and rituals that create barriers in worship like the order of service, the form of prayer, the furnishings, and decorations. None of those matter in the long run. Those are just fads, maybe centuries old, but still not crucial. What is essential to worship is meeting God together with other believers. Lifting his name in adoration and praise in whatever way is meaningful to the group as a whole. However, we elicit his presence among us for a time of celebration with him is what matters most. The rest of it might make me more or less comfortable, but I can suffer through just about anything to be with my Christian brothers and sisters in holy fellowship for a little while. After all, Jesus hung on a cross all day so we could do just that. Don’t you think we could suffer through a song or two without complaining? Our mission reminds me of an old hymn title that might be appropriate in closing, “Bring Them In.” What will it take to do that? Change is sometimes necessary.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV):
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright©
1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

^[1] Charles Keown, The Controversial Organ, March 4, 2014

What Happened to the Storytellers? October 7, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’ve read a couple of books lately by John Walton that describes the thinking of the ancient people of Israel as the nation began. He also writes about what people of Jesus day might think when they heard scripture. It’s interesting reading as he describes what they would have known of the stories of the people around them.

We forget sometimes, they grew up in Egypt after Jacob took his family there to escape the famine in Canaan. They heard the Egyptian tales of the beginnings of mankind and their thoughts on who and why we worship the pantheon of gods they held sacred. We forget Egyptian idols and rituals surrounded the Israelites every day until Moses led them out of slavery and into the wilderness toward the promised land.

The Israelites probably didn’t tell many stories around the dinner table about Moses’ version of creation, the call of Abraham, or the rescue from famine for Jacob and his family. After 400 years, more than 10 generations since Joseph sat next to Pharaoh, I expect most of the Israelites never heard anything except the Egyptian version of ancient history.

Then Moses comes along and incites Pharoah to end the slavery and let the Israelites return to their homeland. I expect the elders tried to carry on some of the traditions Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shared with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But I suppose many more of those two or three million sojourners never heard of Jehovah and certainly didn’t worship him. More followed God’s command to observe the Passover out of fear than obedience. They watched all the other plagues happen just as Moses said they would and wanted no part of this one.

Maybe that’s a little too cynical, but I’m watching our country, and I don’t think I’m too far off the mark. Just about 400 years ago, a boatload of Pilgrim brought Christianity to form a tiny little settlement in this new nation. For a while, we became known as a Christian nation. Now, recent surveys of high school students show most don’t know the stories of the Bible. They’ve never heard of Cain and Abel, Daniel or Elisha, David and Goliath, unless as a motivation speech somewhere. They haven’t heard the miracle stories of the New Testament as Jesus turned water into wine, fed 5,000 men and their families, or raised Lazarus from the dead.

Why is that? Why do our children not know the stories from the Bible? I think there are two simple reasons.

First, we don’t read the Bible ourselves enough to know the stories. We would have a hard time telling the story of Jael and Sisera when Deborah served as the judge over Israel. We might not do well answering questions about who replaced Judas as the twelfth apostle and how he was chosen. We might be really confused as to which missionary trip Paul planted the church at Corinth.

Second, like the ancients and those who walked the earth around the first century, we are primarily aural learners. We don’t think we are because we spend so much time reading books or emails or websites to gather information. But think about it. When someone sings a song you’ve heard several times, and changes even one word or one or two notes in the melody, you recognize it immediately. But in a paragraph you just read, do you know when a word changes? Or can you even see that someone removed a sentence from a section or two? Most people can’t from written documents, but can easily from music.

That’s part of the reason so much of the ancient texts are poetry. Storytellers passed on the history, the commands, the songs, the stories from generation to generation orally. People couldn’t read and write, and those that could wouldn’t have access to books or materials to write them.

The point? In ancient times, parents, elders, storytellers told stories to their children to pass on the vital information within the tribe. When is the last time you share stories of Jesus or what he is doing in your life to your children or grandchildren? I’m pointing fingers at myself as I share this. I’m guilty also. We fail to use the gift of stories to spread what is most important to those who are dearest to us. Listen to what Paul wrote from prison to the one he groomed to take his place. This, from his second letter to Timothy:

For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.¹

Did you notice Paul’s letter refers to teaching Timothy heard from Paul. I can see the two of them talking as they shared meals, traveled down the road together, mended tents, Paul’s other trade. I think Paul shared with Timothy whenever he had the chance about what he believed, the stories told to him about Jesus, his personal experience on the road to Damascus. Timothy soaked up the lessons, and they weren’t written. That came later while Paul sat in prison.

We remember the stories in our lives, not the words on paper. Even the words on paper are remembered because we turn them into pictures in our heads. That’s how our brain works. So when we tell our kids stories about God’s work in the world, past and present, they stick. We just don’t do it enough.

So, how about it? Are you ready to make memories the way Jesus did, telling stories, sharing word pictures to be remembered forever? Are you ready to just talk to those you meet about the story of your life and what God has done for you? No one reads and remembers anymore if they ever did. Take a look at our world. If we remembered what we read, we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over. But we do. Partly because we don’t tell the stories that impact our sons and daughters, our friends and neighbors. We don’t let them see and hear the change God makes in our lives. We’ve lost the art of storytelling. Maybe it’s time to bring it back.