I bought a book on coaching youth football when my boys were young. The coach of a team had resigned, and I needed to step into his role. Never having coached youth football, I searched online for any help I could find. This included reading articles, watching videos, and checking every available resource. There was a guy who coached in Nebraska and produced winning teams no matter who or where he coached. He had written a book, and I shelled out the money for the possibility of being a better coach.

In the early pages of the book, he tells of his experience training youth football coaches. While traveling around the country giving seminars, he is often greeted by coaches after the session who want to talk. He said that he is always amazed at them. Most of the have matching outfits, high dollar shoes, numerous resources, and often an iPad to help them. Yet, none of them are successful. This led him to do some surveys of his listeners and readers and discover that the majority had never had any instruction on how to be a youth football coach. They had all the tools and none of the skill set.

Not too many years later, I was reading an author who was talking about his work and that of other writers. He said something like, “When I go to a coffee shop and see someone writing on a $3000 Mac laptop and using expensive moleskin journals, I know they are not a good writer.” He went on to explain that these people were investing in tools instead of learning how to write. He emphasized that good writing comes through trial and error, along with careful editing. No tool in the world can give you those things if you do not possess a proper work ethic.

Unfortunately, I have seen the same thing in the Church. When I see someone with a large study Bible, a journal, and a beautiful pen set, I think to myself; there is someone who rarely opens their Bible. They have become so enamored with the latest and coolest tools that they have missed the point.

The person who wants to know God and serve him has all the tools they need in a free Bible app or a $5 paperback English translation of the Bible. Religious profiteers take advantage of new Christians and convince them that they need numerous high dollar supplies to make them a better Christian. That is simply not true.

The desire to know God is greater than the tools you own. To those who want to look good, there are never enough tools. To the person who truly wants to know him, nothing will get in their way.

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Church in the city of Galatia contains several comparisons between law and grace. The life following Jesus is different from a life trying to follow the Old Testament law. Then he explains to them the differences as it plays out in the life of a believer. Finally, in chapter five, he gives us what he calls “the fruit of the Spirit.”

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, and self-control.

These are the byproducts of someone who is living for Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Quite often these get mistaught. The preacher will talk about one of them, like the first one, love. He will say, “We need to love more. Believers need to develop love in their life. By the end of this sermon, you will be motivated to love more.”

Sorry, but that is not what Paul is saying. The point of the passage is that when we live a life by the Holy Spirit of God, we will find that we become more loving as he works in us. The closer we get to God and the more obedient we are to his word, the byproduct of our lives will be love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I could spend weeks writing about each one of these, but the one that has fascinated me the longest is the last. One byproduct of people who follow Jesus and live by his Spirit is self-control. That seems strange as the very definition of self-control is that it comes from us. It is “the ability to control oneself, in particular one’s emotions and desires or the expression of them in one’s behavior, especially in difficult situations.” (Oxford Languages definition)

Paul flips the definition for Christians. Those who follow Jesus will find that the closer they get to God, the more self-control they will have. They will find within themselves the power to fight back against evil behavior, toxic emotions, and destructive behavior not through their own power but by the power given them by God. Faith will produce ability that looks like it is coming from inside of us, while God is truly the one giving us the power.

So if you want to take control of your life and no longer be held prisoner by your own words and actions, then surrender yourself entirely to God. Dig into his word, pray with passion, connect to other believers, spend time in communion with him, and seek his will with all your heart. The key to self-control is the God who is in control of the self.

In the Bible, the book called Acts tells us the story of the conversion of Saul, who later is called the Apostle Paul. He has been persecuting the Church and off to round up some more Christians who believed that Jesus was the only way. On his trip, he sees a bright light and hears a voice from heaven saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

This statement alone contains so much valuable information. Saul was persecuting believers and hurting the Church, and Jesus takes it personally. The followers of Jesus together form the body of Christ. When it is damaged, Jesus is hurt.

The story does not end there on the road but moves into Damascus. Saul is blinded, and he goes into town where he prays and fasts for three days. At this point, the story shifts to a man named Ananias. The Lord calls to him in a vision and says, “Go find this man named Saul from Tarsus.” With this statement, Ananias refuses.

Let me pause again and say, “What in the world is going on here?” First, I would like to believe if I heard an audible voice in a vision, I would say, “Whatever you want, Lord!” Ananias is going to take a hard pass on this guy. He is known to be a murderer and anti-Christian, so he is not going to go try to find Saul. Then the Lord must get a little louder. The New International Version translates the next word as “Go” and then adds an exclamation point. There is no punctuation in the original text, but I can imagine they chose the right one to put at this location. The Lord is shocked, “I told you to do something, and you refuse, let me repeat it louder: GO!”

Now convinced that he should listen to this voice of leading, he packs up and heads to find Saul. Acts 9:17 tells us that when he entered the house, he put his hand on Saul and said his first words to him, “Brother Saul.”

Wait! Let’s stop there. A few lines ago, Ananias refused to see this guy because he was known to be violent. Now he calls him “Brother.” What changed? The only thing we see in the story is that the voice of Jesus confirmed his transformation. Jesus knew the heart of Saul and knew the transformation going on in his life. Whoever Jesus has saved and is transforming is no longer a threat; he is a brother.

Christians, the followers of Jesus, do not get the luxury of choosing who else will walk the way of faith with them. That is between them and him. But once they claim to follow him and we know their life is being transformed, then suddenly we all become family. We are the family of God who forms the body of Jesus. To ignore this truth and shun our brother or sister on this journey is to disobey our Savior and hurt him at the same time.

Some of us are slow learners, maybe most of us. When I spent three years as a Jr. High basketball coach, we started every practice almost the same way. We had ball handling drills, passing drills, shooting rotations, and defensive footwork. Every night, five days a week for one month, we practiced skills while learning the basics of basketball.

In a perfect world, the kids would have listened to our coaching, then practiced the moves once and had it memorized for any future setting where it was needed. That is not the nature of humanity. We need to be shown the correct way to do things over and over while trying to do it on our own.

I imagine God as the ultimate coach. He looks down on our life and says, “This is what they need to work next.” We go through an experience or a season, and we learn the moral lesson he is teaching us. We might think that is the end of the story; lesson learned, now move on to the next thing as we are prepared for the future. But that is not how life works. We must repeatedly be taught the most basic principles of what it means to follow Jesus.

God has been teaching me to more patient with people. He wants me to show mercy and grace to those who behave in ways I do not understand. The lesson is one that stretches me as I suffer through people’s short-sightedness and personal issues. I wish I could tell you that he has shown me this one time and I learned my lesson. No, God has been far more persistent than that with me. He keeps showing me the same concept in one encounter after another. This has been happening week after week, year after year, for what seems like decades.

There are few life skills that God teaches us with one experience. Most of the time, we must be shown over and over to get the point. The question is often not, “What new do I need to learn today?” Instead, it is, “What do I need to relearn that I should have mastered long ago?”

After 12 weeks of not meeting together on Sunday morning for worship, the Church I lead met for the first time yesterday.  Our time together was a little different than usual.  We did not have children’s worship the first week, chairs were set up for social distancing, there was no formal greeting time, and communion and offering were at stations.  Despite all the ways our Church meeting was different in many ways, it was the same. 

There were two things I noticed yesterday about our time together.  First, I was not expecting the amount of joy that came from being together with believers again.  It is like that first cold drink of water after a period of working in the hot sun.  The break made everything feel new.  The conversations, familiar face, kind voices, along with the sound of people singing together, filled my soul.  Worshipping together is about a community of people praising God together, and yet, it is also a blessing to those who attend. 

Second, I noticed how much I still miss the little things.  I miss the firm handshake of a brother in Christ.  My wife said she missed giving a warm hug to a sister in Jesus who is struggling. Talking with other Christians over a warm cup of coffee or some form of food was absent.  The connection that usually comes is still not quite there, but I am filled with joy, knowing we are heading back to the place where we once were blessed. 

Overall, I am not sure words can completely express all that I felt yesterday.  It was nervousness with putting together a program as I am a person who stresses each week.  It was fear over the lingering effects of the virus.  It was joy over seeing old friends face to face.  It was a joy as the songs filled the air with worship. 

I love the local Church, and I am glad to be meeting again.  I pray that with time everyone will come back to join us again.  It is good to be with people of like faith. 

I feel like I am caving to the pressure a little, but every preacher and Christian leader I know is posting something about racism the past two weeks. Personally, I have chosen to remain silent. Why? Well, for one I am not a reactionary leader. Second, I have been writing, preaching, and teaching against it for my entire ministry.

Here is my favorite post from 2017 (that was also turned into two different sermons since then.)

Four Christian Reasons Not to Be a Racist

While fishing, I was standing beside the lake watching seven turtles. One by one, they climbed out of the water onto a log until it was full. Then about ten feet away, the remaining turtles climbed up on another piece of the tree, sticking up until five more were on that branch.

If you do not know, turtles cannot generate their body temperature. They need to sunbathe for about two hours to keep their body temperature up and them functioning normally. All turtles need to do this to survive. What I was watching was an action as old as time as each one emerged to find their spot on the log.

What amazed me is that no one turtle tried to push the other turtles off their spot. With each new visitor, all of them adjusted and made room for one more until there was no longer an inch to spare. All of them willingly shared their space for the betterment of every turtle.

I cannot help but wonder if the turtles knew each other. Maybe they have some unknown language that enables them to communicate with one another. This helps them to get along and be more accepting of the other turtles. Perhaps there is some sort of turtle law that keeps them behaving correctly. If they violate the code, then the rest of the turtles ostracize the offender until he changes his behavior. It could even be that this behavior just makes each turtle feel good inside. Not only do they experience the warmth of the sun on their shell, but warmth inside their shell with their good deed.

My best guess is that this is how God wired them to behave. When the sun is out, and there is room on the log, they instinctively move over so that other turtles will get the sunlight they need to survive. Someone does it for them, and then one day, they return the favor. The world God created is filled with kindness, harmony, and concern for all.

Is it possible that God is trying to get us to do the same thing? Jesus gave us what we call “The Golden Rule.” It teaches us to do to others what we would want them to do to us. The creator of all things wants us to learn to live in community with our fellow man in the most harmonious way possible. Freewill allows us to keep pushing back against his plan, and evil has deceived us into thinking it is a good move. God wants us to share some space on the log. The turtle may be slow, but he is a kind creature, and maybe there is something we can learn from him.

There were two types of televisions shows I watched in my younger days. One was a half-hour tale of difficulty and overcoming it with a nice little point all wrapped up at the end. We start with some sort of issues, and the characters try to find solutions, often leading to funny adventures. Finally, the conflict is resolved, and all is well once again.

The other type of show was Seinfeld. It hailed itself as a show about nothing. There was a half-hour of laughs and life observations that might or might not have a point. The show was about laughter more than a lesson.

Many times, we need to realize that life has scenes like a Seinfeld episode. We like to see everything we experience as having some sort of grand point with a meaningful lesson to learn. Partly I think we are conditioned to this type of thinking through the shows we watch along with the movies and books that we expose ourselves too. Most of the material that goes into our brains gives us grand lessons and moralistic points.

The Bible frequently tells us stories that seem to have no real message for us. Flip through the pages of the Old Testament for a few minutes, and you will begin to see it. In the middle of the Joseph story in Genesis, we stop in chapter 38 to tell us about Judah and Tamar (read it). What is that about? Read about the judges and the prophets and tell me if every story has some deep spiritual meaning. Maybe I am a shallow person, but I think these accounts just tell us what happened. Sometimes there is a lesson, and sometimes there is not.

I am going to give you the strangest encouragement you are ever going to hear a preacher give. Sometimes in life, just make through your current situation and move on to the next thing. Don’t overanalyze the experience and try to assign some special meaning. Maybe one day, God will reveal something that was part of a grand design, but then again, perhaps not.

God is growing your soul and making you more like Jesus throughout your life’s journey. Don’t be disappointed if every encounter is not a grand lesson. You are human, and some things in life have no point. Just get through it and move on to what God is doing next.

The disciples watched Jesus die on Friday afternoon on the cross. They lost their leader, teacher, rabbi, mentor, and most of all, their friend. Losing someone you care about is an emotional pain that brings tears and breaks the spirit. Their hope was gone.

On the road to Emmaus, one of Jesus’ followers says, “We had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” Then they add an interesting statement, “And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.” (Luke 24:21 – NIV 2011) After Jesus’ death, the disciples watched the clock. Friday passed and nothing. Then Saturday and now it is Sunday. There is a story of an empty tomb from the ladies, but who can believe them?

Then Jesus reveals himself to those two believers, and they run back to Jerusalem. That Sunday night, Jesus appears to what should have been twelve disciples. Judas went out and hung himself in shame, and Thomas is not present either. Jesus stands in their midst, shows him the scars, and offers them a hope they have never known. They are given the possibility of life after death and eternity with their savior and friend. Their lives were changed, and so was the face of religion forever.

I have often thought of Thomas. Where was he that night? Was he off sulking in the pain of loss? Had he given up on this Jesus thing and headed home like the two on the road to Emmaus? Was he just busy with life? I mean, Jesus is gone, and there are still bills to pay and meals to prepare. Life goes on even in the face of loss.

Jesus will not reveal himself to his disciples again until the next Sunday. The story now focuses on Thomas and his declaration that he will not believe Jesus is alive unless he can touch the scars himself.

I wonder, “How did Thomas live in the ten days from Jesus’ death to seeing him alive?” What did he think? What did he feel? Was he just filled with the uncertainty that accompanies human loss? After all, we want hope, heaven and resurrection sound excellent, but is it too great to believe?

Death pushes us to the very core of our emotional and spiritual lives. What do we really believe? Are we willing to cling to the hope of eternal life during a devasting loss? I think Thomas must have felt those ten days like all of us do when we lose someone about which we care We grab ahold of the stories of Jesus being raised from the dead with all of our heart, and we cannot wait until the day we can see him with our own eyes.

As a believer in God, I build my life on the idea that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere present being who runs the world. I believe God created it, sustains it, saved it, and will make it his own eternally.

And yet when I enter new phases of life, I tend to doubt that he will work everything out for good. Case in point, when we began the Covid-19 shutdown 12 weeks ago, I was sure he could handle four weeks of no weekly Church meetings. I doubted that we could go for six to eight weeks without worship. Here we are 12 weeks later, and good things still seem to be happening.

During this time of lockdown, our Church has generated more income than we needed. We have been able to make two sizeable donations to other charities as a result, and I hope we can make another one soon. Our video worship appears to have worked well. It took a few volunteers and several hours of reading and learning, but our program seemed to connect with people. Each week we have maintained a large number of unique views along with getting new “likes” and “shares” from people we do not know. Our leadership has only communicated through email for the past three months. Last night we met, and everyone picked up right where we left off and are fully prepared to move forward. Every person I run into is making strides ahead in their marriage because of the sermon series I am preaching. The words are connecting, and perspectives are being altered positively. Many good things are happening in this Church community.

If you had told me a year ago that we were not going to worship in person for three months, I would have said that we will have no people, no money, and no hope left at the end of it. Yet here we are today, doing well and ready to get back into our weekly worship schedule. The problem with my vision is that I often forget to calculate in God. When he shows up, impossible situations turn into places of blessings.

I am praising God for what he is doing in the Church I lead today. I also realize that his goodness and power do not stop when you leave the doors of the Church. Whenever we make God a part of our equation in life, the odds change, and the impossible seems possible. Stepping out in faith stretches a believer, but times like this remind me that God can do anything.