Things Get Weird

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Well, let’s start with Jacoby starting to feel more comfortable. Our worship and sound team are doing a great job of getting things dialed in, and it was a great joy to hear people singing. I love being with our entire church family for one service. I enjoyed church yesterday. Yes, there are still many things to address, and we’re still working on learning our new environment, but it feels like we can ‘breath’ a little bit.

I remember when Jill and I completed building our home in 2003. We had been living in a small three-bedroom/1-bath house that was about 1/4 of the size of our new home. We moved in on Super Bowl weekend of 2003. I can still remember sitting in my chair in our new living room and breathing. We had room to expand as a family, and we could walk down a hallway and not run into each other. That’s what Jacoby feels like a little bit.

With one significant difference, it’s not ours. We’re renting. And we’re at the mercy of UCC. The UCC administration has been really helpful and considerate of our needs. We thank God for them. But, we are renting. So, keep that in mind as you pray about our new building and consider how to give to our new building. The Lord has provided Jacoby for us at this time. But we all know that when the Lord provides for our new building, we move there when we can.

Weird Things

We hit another weird moment in Genesis 9 with Ham’s sin and Noah’s drunkenness. So I thought I would give you an inside look at how to see odd moments, like this, in the Bible.

The first thing you have to do is realize that there will be lots of opinions on these types of stories. It was no different in this one. Some believe Ham’s sin was sexually taking advantage of his dad. Some think he took advantage of his mom. These aren’t far-fetched ideas based on several cross-references about what it means to see someone’s ‘nakedness.’

The second thing you have to do is look at other texts in the Bible to gain clarity. As I mentioned, some texts reveal sexual encounters as seeing someone naked (Leviticus 18 and 20; Deuteronomy 22 and 27). But others say that someone shouldn’t see someone other than their spouse naked. So there is quite a bit in the biblical text on this issue. It seems very clear that whatever immoralities were going on in the Egyptian and Canaanite worlds, the people of God should avoid them.

Then finally, as a teacher of God’s word, I am bound only to speak what is clearly revealed in the Bible. As the Reformers said, “where Scripture speaks, we speak. Where it doesn’t speak, we don’t.” The point is…it is hard to draw emphatic, clear-cut lines about what happened in Genesis 9. Whatever happened was awfully sinister and sinful to Noah and the people of Israel. It could’ve been one of the issues I mentioned above.

I have had a few people ask questions about what happened in Genesis 9 and offer some of their insights into what they’ve seen biblically. I find this helpful and encouraging. To have people desire to dig deeper into their Bibles is incredible to me, and to have them offer me their insights shows their love and respect for God and me. It’s a sweet display of God’s work in people’s lives.

Culture of Lewdness

As I drove to church yesterday, I was reminded of Ephesians 5:3-5 when Paul wrote, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

This reminded me of what Moses warns Israel about in Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. And it doesn’t take long to look around at our culture and see the same lewdness and immorality that should be avoided. But what I find fascinating in Ephesians is that Paul challenges us to live in such a way that it’s “not even named among you.” This is a call for such sexual purity that our reputation proves accusations false.

I heard a story from R.C. Sproul about the 1st-century Christians. He said that the sexual purity of the early Christians’ children and young adults proved that the gospel’s power was real to the non-Christian Romans. The Romans were a sexually driven culture and sexually confused on every front, much like ours. And one of the best ways of evangelizing that world was by demonstrating the power of the gospel with sexual purity. So don’t let it “even be named among you.” What a great challenge for us in this immoral world. And that’s just the challenge that the gospel’s power helps us with.

Upcoming

This Sunday, March 26th, we will be at Jacoby Auditorium at Umpqua Community College 10:00 a.m. This week we’ll study the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-26.

From the Cheap Seats

U-S-A…and Trea Turner! Let’s go!
Umm…I don’t think I saw a 7-0 blitz of RB Leipzig or a 6-0 blow-out of Burnley. City is on a roll. Just in time for…the International break. Bad timing.
Ok…Stephon Gilmore for a 5th. Brandin Cooks for a 5th and a 5th. And they released Zeke. The Cowboys needed an elite cornerback…check. They needed another playmaker…check. They needed to release Zeke, even though he’s a great teammate and a true football warrior. It’s a good offseason so far.
And to top my week off…Jacob DeGrom pitched 3 innings in his spring training debut against the Mariners. He said he was just ‘ok.’ He topped 99 and didn’t allow a run. If that’s ‘ok,’ I can’t wait to see what good is.

To watch or listen to the sermon described in this post, please click here.