Vol. 17 No. 13 | March 30, 2015

Sometimes I do not know what to say. I marvel at these words from the man of wisdom: “Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.” (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10, NIV)

He is considered the wisest man who ever lived, so I would not attempt to compete or compare because sometimes I just do not know what to say.

Sometimes when I sit down to write these Notes I don’t down what to say. Words seem far away. Ideas seem unreachable. If you are a regular reader you can probably detect those articles. This is one of those times. The Teacher “also imparted knowledge to the people.” Sometimes I don’t feel like I have much knowledge to impart.

Sometimes I do not know what to say when a mother and father come to me with stories of a son or a daughter who has chosen a life apart from God. I listen to the words of the broken hearts. They ask for guidance. They ask for prayer. I show them as much compassion and kindness as possible, but I do not always know what to say.

Sometimes a couple shares their concerns for their relationship. They once were close; now they are distant. Once they could not be apart; now they have difficulty being in the same room. They once were deeply in love; now they have trouble saying the word. I may share a book. I may offer to schedule a few sessions with them to work through their issues. Sometimes I do not know what to say.

Sometimes a man will tell me how miserable he is with his job. He works long hours to provide for his family, but he hates where he works and he hates some of the things he has to do to keep his job. He never dreamed he would end up in this kind of a situation. He asks me for direction. He pleads with me for help. I pray with him. When he is gone I pray for him again. But I do not have many words for him.

I hear of churches that seem to have lost their way. I hear the distress and sadness in the voices of some of the members. I see the concern and pain in their faces. They ask for prayers. So I pray. They ask for advice. I have none. They ask for direction. I pray for them. They ask for answers. I do not have answers. Sometimes I do not know what to say.

I hear fellow preachers who have grown weary, even more weary than me, and are considering leaving the ministry for something else. I hear men who have left the ministry describe how they wish they could find a way to continue. They ask for ideas. I have none. They ask for suggestions of where they might preach. I have none. Sometimes I do not know what to say.

Sometimes I do not know what to say. Sometimes I do not have words, but tonight I do. Better yet, the Holy Spirit knows what needs to be said.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:26-39, NIV)

Tom

© Copyright 2015 Tom Norvell. All rights reserved.

Vol. 17 No. 12 | March 23, 2015

Create in me a pure heart, O God,and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10, NIV)

Create in me a pure heart, O God. You must do it. I cannot do it on my own. I have tried, O God. Perfect church attendance has not accomplished it. Reading and memorizing Scripture has not accomplished it. Recounting all my years of preaching and teaching has not accomplished it. Keeping a record of all the good things I have done to help other people has not accomplished it. Living with guilt and shame over all the bad things I have done has not accomplished it. I have done all I know to do to create a pure heart and my heart is not yet pure. Father, will You please create in me a pure heart.

Create in me a pure heart, O God. I have tried to clean my heart and make it pure. I do okay for a while, then I find I am right back where I started. It seems as if I never really did much cleaning or purifying. A pure heart? That sounds almost too good to be true. Or, as someone has said about Your grace and mercy, “Maybe it’s too good not to be true.” Lord, I want a pure heart. I want a clean heart. I want a heart that is filled with things that are pure, not the impurities of the day.

And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Lord, my spirit is weary. It needs renewing. I need a new start. A clean start. Again, I have tried to renew my spirit by doing all the right things. That helps some. I see the value in praying, reading Your Word, fasting, and spending time in with Christian people, but my spirit still seems dry.

And renew a steadfast spirit within me. My spirit is not very strong. My spirit is not very solid. My spirit is not very steady. Flimsy would be a better description. I tend to drift along with the wind. If I am not very, very careful I can be swayed and persuaded and distracted from where and who I should be pretty easily. Father, steady my spirit.

And renew a steadfast spirit within me. I know that it is within me to live as You would have me to live. It is within me because You are in me. You live in me. Because You are within me, know I can be strong, I can be steady, and I will experience renewal. So, Father, please renew my spirit from deep within me.

I am with You, Father. I belong to You. I am weak and weary and I am a wanderer. But, if You create in me a pure heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me, I will praise You and tell of Your wonderful ways.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Tom

© Copyright 2015 Tom Norvell. All rights reserved.

Vol. 17 No. 11 | March 16, 2015

I have altered this illustration from The Grace of God by William MacDonald, just a bit to fit a little easier in our current economic situation. MacDonald wrote:

Imagine you have been invited to the White House by the President of the United States. You are seated at a table filled with the choicest foods. Every effort has been made to give you the most enjoyable evening. At the end of a lovely visit, the president stands at the front door to bid you good-bye.What do you do? As you leave, do you press a $20 dollar bill in his hand and say, “Thank you very much for your kindness. I have enjoyed the evening very much. I realize it has cost you a lot of money, and I want to help you pay for the meal”?

Is that the proper response to his kindness? On the contrary, it is a rude and insulting gesture. So it would be with God’s grace and how He has demonstrated His love for us.

Here is the application.

You have come to the end of your life and as you reach the gate into Heaven you are greeted there by God. As He is greeting you with “Well done good and faithful…” you interrupt him and hand him a list showing all the good things you have done in your life. As you show Him your list you say, “I know this has cost You a lot. I want to show You that I have done my part to help pay for it.”

It is as if, after considering all that God has done for you in demonstrating His love for you, you hand Him $20 worth of your own efforts and say, “I know this cost You a lot. I want to do my part to help pay for it.”

“I want to do my part to help pay for it.”

Question: How much is your part?

I chose a $20 dollar bill for the illustration because for most of us twenty dollars is a lot of money. If it is not now, it once was a lot of money. We hand God our $20 list of good deeds and expect Him to be impressed. We expect Him to say, “Why thank you. I could not have done it without you.”

That may not be what He says. He may instead say something like this. “Thank you very much for the good life you have lived. That shows me that you appreciated what I did for you by sending my one and only Son into the world. You know, when I allowed Him to die for you on that horrible day on that horrible cross, I did that for you. I let Him die for you. When His blood was spilled on that cross, your sins were covered. You were set free. Your entire debt was paid. I really do not need your list. I know what you have done. And, although I wish you could have relaxed a little while you were living in the world and not worried so much about doing all the right things and not doing all the wrong things, I am still glad you are here. Although I wish you could have trusted my love for you enough to enjoy the abundant life I provided for you more fully, I do love you and I really am glad you are finally here with me. Welcome home.”

Tom

© Copyright 2015 Tom Norvell. All rights reserved.

Vol. 17 No. 10 | March 9, 2015

Do We Really Not Know? 

We have been going to church all our lives. We have listened to hundreds, maybe thousands of sermons. We have attended conferences, workshops, seminars, and small group studies all designed to help us share our story of faith with other people. We have accumulated all that information and still we act like we do not know what they need.

We have resources at our fingertips that can help us understand our neighbors and give us insight into what life is like outside of the walls of our church buildings. We read books on understanding our times and we pride ourselves in knowing our communities and yet we still act like we do not know what the people in our communities need.

We read our Bibles and pray our prayers and sing our songs and offer to help by saying, “If there is anything we can do for you please let us know.” We have our times of fellowship, we pat one another on the back, we shake hands and ask, “How are you doing?” and sometimes they tell us. We know people are hurting and we know they are in need and yet we act like we do not know what they need.

Obviously these scenarios are not always true. Not all churches and not all Christians act like we do not know what people need, but many do. Do we really not know?

Do we really not know that marriages that are in trouble need help learning better and more effective ways to communicate and become better at managing their money, or us solid Biblical teaching about being married?

Do we really not know that parents who are having trouble with their teenage son or daughter need help understanding what life is like for a teenager, need help knowing how to communicate with their teen, and learning what it means to be a parent?

Do we really not know that the family of a fifteen year old boy who was shot in his own driveway needs help dealing with the shock, anger, and pure sadness that comes with such a loss?

Do we really not know that the family of the eleven year old boy responsible for the shooting need help as they deal with the confusion, the guilt, and the loss of their son being taken from them?

Do we really not know that the woman who lost her husband after fifty years of marriage needs help to move through the grieving progress?

Do we really not know that a teen age girl dealing with all the pressures of being a teenage girl needs a mother, or a grand mother, or another godly woman to invite her into life where a relationship of trust and understanding can grow?

Do we really not know? As followers of Jesus, after reading of His life, after knowing how He lived and loved and served and touched people, do we really not know? Maybe if we remember what He came to do it might help us remember.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-23, NIV).

Do we really not know?

Tom

A Norvell Note © Copyright 2015. Tom Norvell All Rights Reserved.

Vol. 17 No. 09 | March 2, 2015

I can remember the first “store bought” hamburger I ever ate. It was from Dad’s in Hope, Arkansas. I think we could get 5 for $1. The burger consisted of a bun, a thin hamburger patty, onions (lots of onions), and mustard. You could eat in (if you were a white person) by going to the window ordering your burger and sitting at a picnic table on a sawdust floor under the tin roof attached to the main building. If your skin was black you had to order from a window in the back of the building. I do not know if there was a picnic table. As I recall the menu consisted of these items: Hamburgers. If they had other items, I never knew it. The burgers were thin, greasy and covered with chopped onions. You usually smelled like onions after eating a burger. If you went to Dad’s you knew what you were getting: a hamburger. They did hamburgers well. (At least I thought they did.) It was a big deal for my family to “eat out” at Dad’s.

Things have changed. There are not many Dad’s around.

Restaurants that once specialized in certain items have changed. One burger place advertises more about gourmet coffee than burgers. It seems that a number of burger places are more interested in promoting their fish sandwiches, or their chicken sandwiches. One very popular pizza place highlights their brownies, not their pizza. When watching some perfume or cologne commercials you must watch very closely to understand what is being advertised. With some, even if you watch closely, you may still not understand. The same is true for some automobile commercials. I often find myself after some of these ads saying, “Whaaaaat?”

Things have changed. Is it too much to ask for hamburger businesses to sell hamburgers? Before I get too carried away with my nostalgic lament, let me admit that folks in my profession may be equally guilty. I wonder if people looking for a church might ask the same question, “Whaaaaat?”

Type “churches in my area” in your web browser and see what you get. Most likely you will have numerous options for additional searches. Churches of all names and sizes and brands. If you investigate further you are likely to find even more puzzling information. This church focuses on this. This church focuses on that. This church has this kind of worship. That church has that kind of worship. This group emphasizes these things. That church emphasizes those things. This church boosts of being enough for everyone to find a place. That church boosts of being small enough for everyone to feel at home. This church has this kind of preacher. That church has another kind of preacher. “Whaaaaat?”

Don’t misunderstand. As much as I would enjoy a good old Dad’s hamburger (or 5 for $1), I am glad we have other choices. My tastes for burgers have changed. The same is true for spiritual needs. Churches that met my needs as a teenager or young adult would not have the same appeal today. Churches that offer me spiritual nourishment might not offer anything worthwhile to someone decades younger than me.

The diversity is good. We like options. We value choices. We are all different. We have different needs and tastes and preferences.

There is one thing, however, that I believe is constant and necessary as we scan the globe for a spiritual community. What is it? Christ.

Paul said it as he explained his situation in prison as he talked of different motives and different preaching that was going on. “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” (Philippians 1:18, NIV)

That is what I look for in a church. Christ is preached. That is one thing I will not compromise. Christ is preached. That is one of my goals for where I preach and teach. Christ is preached.

Styles change. Preferences differ. Opinions are cheap. The emphasis we place on different methods and approaches to sharing the message are going to vary according to the context of the community and the make-up of the church. But please, I beg you, let Christ be preached.

This week I hope you find a good burger, a nice slice of pizza, and especially a church where Christ is preached.

Tom

© Copyright 2015 Tom Norvell. All rights reserved.