I’ve always loved having May 29th as my birthday.  As a child, it coincided with the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation.  Now, at the ripe young age of 57, it feels just as festive.  Today I’ve spent my first morning being 57 working on a sermon from 5:7.

It’s the upcoming TDF message for June 7, and the text is 1 Peter 5:7—Casting all your care on Him for He cares for you.

The Greek word Peter used – cast — occurs only one other time in the New Testament, where it is translated threw.  In the story of the Triumphal Entry, some of the disciples threw their coats on the donkey as a saddle for the Lord Jesus.  The idea is that just as the disciples took off their cloaks and threw them on the donkey, so we take off our anxieties and cast them on the Lord. 

Paul Gerhardt put it this way in his poem:  “Commit Whatever Grieves Thee,”  which is timeless hymn, whatever our age:

Commit whatever grieves thee
Into the gracious hands
Of Him Who never leaves thee,
Who Heav’n and earth commands.
Who points the clouds their courses,
Whom winds and waves obey,
He will direct thy footsteps
And find for thee a way.

Tonight I’m finishing a series of meetings at the Rose Hill Church in Monticello, Arkansas, were Dr. David Ponder is pastor.  He and his wife, Valerie, who are former members of my church in Nashville, have been wonderful hosts, and I’ve been so impressed by the warmth of the Rose Hill congregation.  My final message is one I preached at Donelson and posted several weeks ago from Revelation 4 and 5, on the subject of worship.

Think of worship as the gyroscope of the soul.

When I was a boy, my father always brought me back something from his trips; and on one occasion, he pulled from his suitcase a gyroscope, a toy made of circular metal frames that were essentially wheels within a wheel (like the wheels in Ezekiel 1).  It had a pull string and a pedestal, and the outer circle spun around the inner circle, creating a smooth stabilizing action that allowed the gyroscope to maintain its balance.

I didn’t realize it then, but my toy gyroscope was modeled after an invention developed in the 1800s, which was patterned on the rotation of the earth.  Still today, a typical airplane uses about a dozen gyroscopes to keep its orientation.  They’re also found on the space shuttles, the Russian Mir space station, and the Hubble Space Telescope.  A gyroscope inside a ship or an aircraft gives it stability and direction.  It keeps it even-keeled in storms or turbulent weather.

The habit or worship is the gyroscope inside us.  A person without worship is like a ship or plane without stabilization or direction.  When we worship, we’re aligning our minds to God’s truth, our imaginations to God’s glory, our emotions to God’s stability, and our souls to God’s songs.  It keeps us balanced and steady.

A.W. Tozer said, “Without worship, we go about miserable.”

The Scottish theologian, Sinclair Ferguson, suggested that worship is, essentially, the reversal of sin. Sin is when we make ourselves the center of the universe and dethrone God.  “By contrast,” said Ferguson, “worship is giving God His true worth.”

The Anglican Archbishop William Temple wrote: 

Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.  It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to his purpose.

Here are some tips to worshipping better:

1. Make worship and praise a part of your quiet time each day.  Include the verse of a hymn and/or a period of true thanksgiving in your morning devotional routine.
2. Learn to visualize the throne of God above you, as described in Exodus 17, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, and Revelation 4, 5, and 22.
3. Don’t worry about worship “styles.”  Whatever the style, keep your eyes on the Lord.  Never say, “I didn’t like that hymn,” or “I wish we wouldn’t sing those praise songs.”  It’s not about our favorite styles; it’s about forgetting our own preferences and focusing on Him .
4. Train yourself to concentrate on the words of the hymns and prayers during church services.  Don’t let yourself sing mindlessly or aimlessly.
5. Learn to say, “Thank you, Lord,” whenever you see a beautiful cloud formation, a lovely cluster of plants, or whenever something good or bad happens.  Take it right to the Lord in praise.
6. Serve the Lord with joy.  To quote Tozer again:  “We’re here to be worshippers first and workers only second.”

 I’d like to tell you about the time I met the famous holocaust survivor, Corrie ten Boom.  In November of 1974, I was working as a “gofer” for the Billy Graham team during a crusade in Norfolk, Virginia, and I was taking the hotel elevator.  When I stepped in, there she was.  Her gray halo-arranged hair and character-lined face were unmistakable. 

I wondered whether to call her Miss Boom or Miss ten Boom.  Whatever I said, she squinted at me and asked with Dutch accent:  “Young man, have you ever seen an angel?”
 
“No,” I replied, startled, “Not that I know of.”
 
“Well, I have,” she declared.  And in the time our elevator took to reach the bottom floor she told me of a time when she was smuggling Bibles into Communist Eastern Europe.  The border guard was checking everyone’s luggage, and she knew her load of Bibles would surely be discovered.  In alarm she prayed, “Lord, you have said that you would watch over your Word.  Now, please watch over your Word that I am smuggling.”

Suddenly as she looked at her suitcase it seemed to glow with light.  No one else saw it;  but to her it was clearly visible.  There was an aura of light wrapped around that suitcase.
 
Her turn came at customs, and the guard, who had so vigilantly opened and inspected every piece of everyone’s luggage, glanced at her bags, shrugged, and waved her through.  It was an angel, she told me, who had helped her deliver God’s Word behind the Iron Curtain. 

I’ve never forgotten that story, or the experience of meeting a woman who wasted no opportunity to say a word for the Lord.  Even a few fleeting moments with a kid on an elevator became, for her, an occasion for ministry.

You just can’t trust the media to get it right. This week, I heard news reports concerning an exciting new discovery—the “Missing Link”—that proves evolution is true. Some reports called it a “groundbreaking discovery” that fills in a critical gap in human and primate evolution.

The fossil, named “Ida,” is about the size of a cat, with four legs and a tail. It’s remarkably well preserved, down to the contents (fruit and leaves) in the fossil’s stomach area. But a closer reading of the story shows:

• This isn’t a new discovery at all. It’s a fossil that was found in 1983.
• The sudden PR “hype” is because of the rollout of a documentary called “The Link,” that will air on the History Channel next week, and a companion book. In other words, this is a marketing campaign, not a new discovery. (The mainstream media fell for a similar trick a couple of years ago regarding the “Gospel of Judas.”)
• Nothing about this so-called “link” indicates that it could in any way be in any purported chain of human evolution. Top scientists are asking the hype be tempered to reflect the fact that Ida has no transitional features and is therefore irrelevant to the evolutionary hypothesis of human development.

A science writer for the Smithsonian wrote:

This is a shame. I would have hoped that this fossil would receive the care and attention it deserves, but for now it looks like a cash cow for the History Channel. Indeed, this association may not have only presented overblown claims to the public, but hindered good science as well.

A report in today’s Baptist Press quotes Dr. Kurt Wise, a paleontologist with his doctorate from Harvard (he studied under the famous evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould), as saying:

The unusual conditions of the Messel Lake (in Germany, where the fossil was discovered) were probably created by a combination of global warmth (a much warmer earth than that of the present day) and the presence of active supervolcanoes (much larger than any known today) – both a consequence (I believe) of the earth recovering from the effect of Noah’s Flood.

There are also articles about this at The Christian Post and the Discovery Institute. For me, there are two great lessons to be learned from this publicity stunt:

1. Every discovery and every fossil displays the creative intelligence and genius of a Designer/Creator God. It’s a wonder to see how incredibly He created all that was and is.

2. You can’t trust media hype when it comes to the “Missing Link.” That’s something we should have learned with Piltdown Man.

I’ve been reading and re-reading the book of 1 Peter day after day during my devotions, trying to find the “plan” of the book and to ascertain its primary purpose—not with the help of commentaries or notes from study Bibles, but just from the text itself.  In doing so, I’ve been toying with the observation that Peter: (1) distinguishes various groups within the church; and (2) uses various images to describe the church.  He does this consistently through his book.  I’m not suggesting this as the primary exegetical plan for the book, but—as they used to say in the mountains—“it’ll preach!”   It’ll also serve as a good outline for personal study or Bible teaching.  In fact, it could be the basis for a sermon series.  The key to this outline is found within the text of the book itself, as Peter sees church members in the multi-faceted roles that we occupy as…

1. God’s Elect – 1:1-12:   Peter…to God’s elect (1:1)
2. Obedient Children - 1:13-16:  As obedient children… (1:14)
3. Strangers – 1:17-25:  As strangers (1:17)
4. Newborn Babies - 2:1-2:   Like newborn babies… (2:2)
5. Living Stones  - 2:3-8:   Like living stones… (2:5)
6. Chosen People - 2:9-10:   But you are a chosen people… (2:9)
7. Aliens - 2:11-12:   As aliens and strangers… (2:11)
8. Citizens – 2:13-17 :  As free men… (2:16)
9. Slaves  -  2:18-25:   Slaves… (2:18)
10. Wives  - 3:1-6:   Wives… (3:1)
11. Husbands -  3:7:   Husbands… (3:7)
12. Brothers - 3:8-4:11 :  As brothers… (3:8)
13. Christians -  4:12-19:   As a Christian… (4:16)
14. Elders  -  5:1-4:    To the elders… (5:1)
15. Young & Old  –  5:5-14:   Young men… all of you…
    

If you collect quotations, here’s one I’ve come across while preparing a sermon from 1 Corinthians 10:13, on the subject of temptation.

“Temptation is the tempter looking through the keyhole into the room where you’re living; sin is your drawing back the bolt and making it possible for him to enter” — Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman

Last night it was my joy to baptize two of my grandchildren — Christiana and Corinna.  Both of them had gone through a book designed to help children come to faith in Christ — Lola Mazola’s Happyland Adventure:  My John 3:16 Book.  And both girls were eager to share their profession of faith with others through the act of baptism.  Here are some pictures, compliments of Grace.

(I’ve been working several days to hammer last Sunday’s sermon into a concise outline; here it is for your devotional study or teaching/preaching use.  The key text is Jeremiah 29:1-14, especially verse 11.  You can find the whole sermon here.)

Scripture — Jeremiah 29:11:  “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.”

Introduction/ Background (Jeremiah 29:1-3):  Sometimes things are not as we want them to be.  Despite our best efforts, our circumstances aren’t user friendly.  In this passage, Jeremiah was trapped in the city of Jerusalem which was being dissembled by the Babylonians.  False prophets were telling the people, “Don’t give up; there’s still hope.  God will surely send a miracle of deliverance as He has in the past.”  But Jeremiah’s message was, “There’s no last minute miracle on the way.  The judgment of God is falling.”  In chapter 29, he wrote to exiles who had already been deported to Babylon, giving the same message, but in the middle of it we find this remarkable verse of comfort and hope (v. 11).  In looking this chapter, we can learn something about responding to negative surroundings.  When we are not where we want to be, how should we respond?

1.  Make the Best of Things (vv. 4-6):  This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so they too may have sons and daughters.  Increase in number there; do not decrease.”  Jeremiah’s point is:  There isn’t going to be a last-minute miracle or any sudden solutions to the problem.  All you can do for now is make the most of it, do the best you can, rejoice in the Lord, and keep on going. 

2.  Pray Where You Are (v. 7):  Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Ask God to bless your surroundings.   If they prosper, you will prosper.   Jeremiah was telling the people to pray for the “shalom” of the nation where they had been exiled.

3.  Beware the Wrong Voices (vv. 8-9):  Jeremiah warned the exiles not to listen wrong voices.  There has never been so much deviant propaganda directed at so many unthinking people through so many mesmerizing media.

4.  Take the Long View (v. 10):    This verse contains a remarkable prophecy.  The removal of King Jehoiachin occurred in 597 B.C.  The complete collapse and fall of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem happened eleven years later in 586 B.C.  On several specific occasions, Jeremiah predicted that the nation of Judah would be destroyed, its capital city burned, its people deported, and the entire nation would be wiped off the face of the earth, but that within 70 years, Judah would be back.  The nation would be reestablished.  Compare Jeremiah 25:8ff; Daniel 9:1ff; Ezra 1:1ff.  We live in a day in which everyone wants immediate gratification, but Christians are looking forward to God’s long-term faithfulness (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

5.  Get Hopeful about God’s Plans (v. 11):  Remember that these words were spoken to a displaced, defeated, depressed group of exiles.  They had hung their harps on the willow trees and had lost their song.  But with the Lord, things are never hopeless.  For I know the plans I have for you…

6.  Seek the Lord Above All (v. 13-14):  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.  Whatever our circumstances, we can make Him Lord of our lives and seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.

The TDF Staff is at Montgomery Bell State Park for a couple days where we’ve had some great discussions about current and future organizational and ministry needs.  In the meantime, my mind is on my son-in-law, Ethan Pierce, who’s leaving early tomorrow (Wednesday) morning for Basic Training at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina.  And I have Victoria on my mind, with the seven children left behind (two of which will soon be heading to Florida for the summer).  Ethan will be gone for ten weeks, followed by additional weeks in further training at another army base.  Tomorrow will be a difficult day for them; so if you can, add him and them to your prayer list.

Sunday’s sermon is from Jeremiah 29:11, a well-known, much-loved promise:  “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 a future and a hope.”

But the context is the key.  This promise was contained in a letter written by Jeremiah to refugees and exiles in Babylon, telling them to make the best of their situation (see Jeremiah 29:5-7).  Here’s an excert from the message.  For the whole sermon, click here.

The other day I read a quotation from Martha Washington, our nation’s first First Lady.  She said:  “I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have . . . learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”

Sometimes there is nothing you can do to change your circumstances.  Maybe at some point they’ll change, but only in time.  For now, all you can do is to make the most of it, to do the best you can, to rejoice in the Lord and to keep on going.  Do the best you can where you are right now.   Don’t give up.  Don’t spend years wishing that something had or had not have happened.  Don’t be consumed by things you cannot change.  Just settle down and do the best you possibly can where you are.  That’s God’s advice in Jeremiah 29.