Find Out Two Ways to Become "Un-Humpty-Dumptied" by the Cross

Do you think we each have a nursery rhyme character who could be our long, lost, identical twin? 

Personally, I find Humpty Dumpty highly relatable and relevant to my story.

I haven’t asked my mom yet, but I wonder if Humpty and I were accidentally separated at birth.

Why?

On the outside Humpty looks like a pretty dapper egg.

I grew up in suburbia, finished high school, college and grad school.  I got married, had a bunch of kids, work a job and even involve myself with a pretty cool church.

But that white, polished exterior is as thin and brittle as glass.

My heart, like yours, is so disordered and fragile.

And Humpty spends so much energy climbing up on walls.

He thinks they enable him to enjoy the high life.

But up there on those self-made walls of success, sex or salary, life can get a little shaky.

Up on a wall, leaning forward or backward just a bit too much comes with a cost.

In fact, when the wind of suffering and sin blows, Humpty falls off the wall only to blast apart in shards of gooey shell.

You might say he even feels dry and forsaken after the gravity of his situation presents itself.

Ever been there?  I’ve fallen off more walls this week than I can remember.

As we march toward Good Friday, many of us are starting to think about Christ and his God-forsaken cross.

As we ache and groan at the base of the walls we’ve fallen from, let’s take a fresh look at the cross.

When we look at the cross and listen to the words of Jesus, something surprising happens.

• We actually begin to become un-humpty-dumptied in two transformative ways.

The first way we become un-humpty-dumptied happens as we listen and believe Jesus say the following words:  “I am thirsty.” (John 19:28).

Did you hear that?  Jesus actually admitted, as he hung up there on that cross in the place of sinners, that he was dying of thirst.

I’ve heard Jesus say a bunch of “I Am” sayings like, “I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world”…etc.

Since he was fully God, those statements sound reasonable.

But to hear his say “I AM THIRSTY” magnetizes my mind and heart to trust Him in his humanity too.

As a flesh and blood guy, he actually slipped on human skin with thirst receptors and all.  His physical thirst was real and desperate as he bled to death.

Our hearts are thirsty too.

We erect so many strategic, self-salvation walls to perch on for a sense of purpose.

But endless effort and earning only make our dry, spongy hearts brittle and breakable.

I “say” Jesus saved me from my sin, and yet I “live” looking up to pseudo-saviors like possessions, people and power.

I sip on entertainment, gulp up activity after activity, and finally slurp with a straw the latest information about everything.

And yet I’m still thirsty.

As we hear Jesus scream “I AM THIRSTY” we realize that he thirsted under the righteous wrath of God in our place.

When we believe this personally, we become un-humpty-dumptied.

It’s like the cold snow, packed and pressing on the roof of our lives, becomes sun-warmed and slowly slides off.

We begin to be put back together again.

We begin to sip and swallow His love for us.  

His thirst wasn’t quenched so that my thirst would be quenched forever.

And this transaction between him and the Father, where he was penalized for my treason, becomes the very means of my transformation.

I am becoming un-humpty-dumptied!

The second way to become un-humpty-dumptied happens as we hear Jesus say “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

Jesus coughed these sad words through thirsty lips, three hours after he was hoisted up on the cross.  

Three hours of depressing God-forsakeness.

The savior that arrived in supernatural starlight, (see Matthew 2) hung high on a cross in the dark.

I am the one that climbs atop my achievements as I sit in the dark with a smug look of pride.

But it’s really dark up here.

I feel lonely and separated from others.

Up on my self-made wall, I feel superior to others.

But then I find someone with a wall that is just a little higher-- and begin to feel inferior.

I’m either prideful or depressed.

Either way, I feel distanced from friends and family.

Jesus hung suspended between heaven and earth, forsaken by the Father, so that I could have fellowship with God and others forever.

As I look at his forsakenness, I become un-humpty-dumptied.

I will never be fully forsaken because he was forsaken for me.

I am wanted, loved and knitted to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.

My cracked self is being fixed up.

I kneel at the foot of the cross gazing at my thirsting, forsaken King, and my heart suddenly flutters with hope.

Because he fell apart…

I am whole.

I’m so looking forward to Good Friday!

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Two Surefire Ways to Starve Fear

True story-

A long time ago in a land far, far away, a sweet woman lived with food and family, in a little town called The House of Bread.

But the food ran out in the little town.

A shadowy fear crept up, like a thief, and sat at the margin of her starving mind as her stomach began to scream for bread.

She didn’t want to die in her desperation so she, along with her two sons, and her husband, went to live in another land even further away.

First her husband dropped dead.  

Some psychologists say, that the death of a spouse, is the second most sorrowful loss experienced by the sensitive, human heart.

Fear stepped closer as it laughed and whooped at her new widowhood.

Then her beloved boys breathed their last.  

Those same psychologists say, that the loss of a child is the ultimate loss, that lashes the heart with a searing whip of scarring pain.

She lost two sons and fear frolicked and grinned at her grim circumstances.

The thieving fear that remained on the margins of her mind stepped closer to her.

It demanded to be fed, so that it could grow and finally swallow her whole.

But she was a daughter of God even though she strayed far from her homeland, the House of Bread.  

One of her beloved boys had married a foreign unbeliever before he died.

Ruth was her name and in Hebrew her name means a close companion.

A companion is literally (from the Latin) a “bread-friend.”  A person with whom we share bread.  

Before the fear could engulf this mother-in-law named Naomi, she made a decision.

It would be a single decision that would change the course of cosmic history.

She decided that she would do two things to starve her fear.

• First she began to starve her fear by feeding her faith.

Instead of looking at her poverty, hopelessness and helplessness, she looked and listened to God alone.

An entire book of Scripture (the book of Ruth) tells this ancient, rags-to-riches story, in delicious detail.

Specifically, Naomi decides to return to the House of Bread, simply because she heard the news that God had caused the wheat to grow again.

Faith is putting all of our confidence in the reality of God’s resources.

Faith is filtering our fears through the fact of God’s promises.

Naomi will feed her faith by returning to God.

How many of us stray far from God and begin to starve in the dark shell of suffering in which we have surrounded ourselves?

The world tells us to look inside and to trust our inner feelings.

If we’re honest, this is a recipe for walking in circles as fear glides above us like a vulture.

Faith looks out to the living, caring God.

It is often, in the tightening fist of fear, as we begin to “crack up” spiritually-- and emotionally-- and financially-- and relationally, when we finally decide to return to the living, loving God.

Just as a beautiful, baby bird begins to crack out of its stifling surroundings, by literally cracking up the superficial shell that suffocates it, we too must look out in faith in order to fly free.

Outside of our circumstantial shells we finally see the reality of His resources.

We must starve our fear by feeding our faith.

• The second thing Naomi does to starve her fear is engage in the selfless service of others.

Naomi loved Ruth deeply and told her to return to her family.  Naomi knew that Ruth, a widow with insufficient resources, would be served best by the safety and security of her own family. 

Naomi starved her fear by serving the real needs of Ruth even while she was personally suffering.

How many of us become self-absorbed when we suffer.  We feed our fear by selfishly demanding that others orbit around our sad situation.

The secret to starving our fear though, centers on focusing outward in service in order to supply the needs of others.

Surprise!

Just when Naomi had starved her fear by feeding her faith and focusing on serving the needs of others, Ruth speaks.

She says some of the most beautifully fulfilling words in all of sacred scripture:

Ruth 1:16-17   16 But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you."

Naomi now had a companion as she travelled back to the House of Bread, the little town of Bethlehem.

If you roam around in the little book of Ruth a little further, a few more things bloom into beauty. 

Ruth would soon marry a man who owned a field fruitful with food.

Ruth would be the Great Grandmother of David, the King of the Jews.

Many years later, in that same little town called the House of Bread, Jesus, a direct descendent of Ruth, would be born.

And all who focus and feed on him alone, know the secret of how to starve fear forever.

What direction are your eyes looking in your loss?

Let’s look to Him!

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Two Reasons to NOT make any New Year's Resolutions for 2016

My “want-dial” is turned up as high as it can go.

And that’s how it should be.

God created us as needy children with thirsting, craving, desiring embodied souls.

And this is a very good thing.

But I want so many things….all the time and often feel unsatisfied in the core of my heart.

• What do you really want in 2016?

Most of us want to experience “change.”

And not just any kind of change.  We want genuine, deep, transformational change.

Every year I make well-intentioned resolutions to change.

I have resolved to:

• Eat less food after 8PM
• Pray more often with my wife
• Drink fewer Diet Cokes
• Call my friends more often
• Express my anger in a healthy rather than hostile way
• Gossip less
• Eat more vegetables
• Watch less entertainment
• Listen more than I speak

But I’m embarrassed to report that 99.9 percent of my resolutions were as successful as trying to climb to the moon on a rope made of dry sand.

I’ve already read two scientific studies this year about the effectiveness (or should I say in-effectiveness) of resolutions.  One study said that only 7 percent of the people that make resolutions actually keep them.  The second study dropped the number down to 5 percent.

What do we do if we want to deeply change this year?

Personally, I’m giving up on resolutions.

Now don’t misunderstand me here.

I’m not giving up on change.

When Christ redeemed me from my slavery to sin, I received a new heart and the transformational power of his Spirit.

Check out God’s promise from Ezekiel 36:  26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. 

With my new, living, throbbing heart, inflamed by his Spirit, I can actually change.

But deep change is different than a self-manufactured half-baked resolution.

A resolution is simply a superficial change in my outward behavior, often motivated by a selfish want.

God does not want our external attempts at skin-deep change empowered by our unreliable “will-power”.

Instead, God wants us to live into our new wants because we have brand new hearts.  He wants us to learn to live with internal motivations fueled by the fire of His grace and empowered by His Spirit.

United to Christ, change is now inevitable!  Because we are in Christ, we can now produce actions of love and selfless sacrifice

How does this work in real-time?

Have you heard the catchy phrase, “You will keep getting the results you get, unless you change the thought patterns that you have set?"

Well, rather than wanting to eat less after 8PM, I am going to start asking myself, “What’s really moving me toward eating more and more?  Is it a restlessness or boredom or sense of entitlement after a hard day that I think I deserve?”

Instead of hanging my hat on the fleeting fulfillment of the screaming desires from my taste buds, I’m going to give more attention to the spiritual taste buds of my new heart and the glory of God.

When the hunger begins to haunt me, I’m going to remind myself that I am a child of the living God.  My new heart beats with love towards Him above all because He treasures me.  

My new heart pulses with a desire to prioritize others over my immediate demands.  

What if I called a friend when the hunger began to haunt me?

What if I went for a walk with my wife and prayed with her?

What if I listened more to her as we walked and she prayed, rather than always running my mouth?

Jesus (as far as I can tell) never told us to “resolve.”

But he did command us to “repent.”

Repentance is all about deep, deep change in our thoughts and motivations.

If we can change our minds, with His ever-present help, to reflect his perspectives, our actions will begin to take on new shapes.

That’s what I want this year, as I seek to love God above all and my neighbor as myself.

Will you embrace deep change this year?

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Find Out How You React to Royalty This Christmas

Do you enjoy a cheap thrill from time to time?

Don’t be embarrassed to admit it!  So do I.

One of my all-time favorites is when I experience the involuntary “knee-jerk” reaction.

You’ve had the experience, haven’t you?

You go to your doctor, sit on the exam table and she whacks you in the knee with an orange, triangle-shaped rubber hammer.

Before you even think about your response, your lower leg jerks forward because of the prior stimulus.

For some reason, this makes your doctor smile and you silently hope this means everything is hunky-dory.

Did you ever stop to think about the three radically different reactions people had to the birth of Jesus?

Matthew, one of Jesus’ closest friends, captures these three reactions to the royalty of Jesus the manger-king in the second chapter of his gospel.

Go ahead and see which reaction you resonate with.

The first reaction to the royalty of Jesus was extreme frustration.

Herod, the puppet “king of the Jews” at that time, became emotionally agitated by Jesus in a bad way. 

And we can all understand why.  

Even though the Romans ruled with an iron fist, he fancied himself a king and lived under the illusion that his plans, goals, and priorities were entitled to stay on the throne of his heart.

Jesus, the true king, arrived with new plans, goals and priorities.  Initially, this causes us to feel emotionally troubled, confused and disturbed.

I’m used to being in charge of my destiny and day to day goals.

But what if we were never meant to be sitting on the thrones of our hearts?

What if our dethroning of God by the constant enthronement of our demands actually dehumanizes us?

What if we were meant to be cared for by a good king?

What if we were graced and given even greater plans, goals and priorities for living a fully human life than we could dream up?

If we enthrone this manger-king and remove our rumps from His royal throne, we can begin playing again as care-free children and dance in His presence with unconscientious joy.

Oh—how I want my heart to jerk forward and react this way to the real royalty of Jesus!

I’m gonna release my bloody grip on my end of the tug-of-war rope of illusionary control.

The second reaction to the royalty of Jesus was ho-hum, thumb-twiddling boredom.

Matthew, the story-teller, goes on to say how Herod tried to calm his troubled reaction to this rival king.

He gathered together all of the religious know-it-alls.

With a tone of hypocritical humility, he demands to know where this “Christ” (a code word for king) would be born so that he could worship him.

With a colorless case of the blah’s, the chief priests and scribes stodgily mention that an ancient prediction mentioned something about a shepherd-ruler who would be born in Bethlehem.

Matthew mentions no excitement, anticipation, or hope-filled eager expectation from these professional, religious experts.

Imagine having a leader described as a shepherd-ruler.

This combination of descriptives awakens and inflames hope.

A shepherd compassionately cares for the concerns of his flock.

To be labeled a “ruler” in that culture was to be understood as a leader who was willing to go first as the guide.  

He was the one willing to sacrifice himself, so that those who followed his “rule” or lead would stay on the safe path to the desired destination.

These institutionalized, religious specialists should have whooped and hollered hallelujahs at the mention of this coming shepherd-ruler.

Instead…they reacted with the sonic sound of silence.

I don’t want the world to hear crickets when I react to the shepherd-ruler.

What moves my heart should also move my lips.

I can’t wait to gather for worship at church on Sunday and join the chorus of those that whoop and holler hallelujahs from our head to our toes in anticipation of the coming shepherd-ruler.

The third reaction to the royalty of Jesus was explosive worship.

The wise guys from the East saw the star signaling the presence of royalty.

Their hearts began to bubble and boil and brim over the edges.

Matthew puts it this way, “they were overwhelmed with joy.”

Ever been there emotionally?

I was there when I saw the birth of my first baby.

Overwhelmed with joy.

Overjoyed.

Unable to contain this bursting joy, these wise guys fall to their knees and tip themselves over like full pitchers of praise.

What they pour out at the feet of royalty has become legendary: 

• Gold, the king of the metals will shimmer and shine for this king of kings.
   
• Frankincense, the sweet perfume mingled with temple sacrifices, will waft through the air as Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, takes this treasure with pleasure.
   
• Lastly the worshippers gave Jesus myrrh, the scented oil stirred into the wine offered to him on the cross.  Hours later it would be used to embalm his lifeless body before it was laid in the tomb.

I want to react and explode with sacrificial worship, showering treasures upon him because he is royalty.

How will you react to Jesus this Christmas?

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church