Ask Pastor Joe: Is God Coming Soon?

Hello Emmanuel,

September has brought a new change to my newsletter.  September will be Ask Pastor Joe instead of Monday Morning Pulpit.  Submit your questions to me via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I’ll give you an answer.  Who knows?  It might be a good one.

Is God coming soon?

My first smart-aleck answer is ‘yes’.  My second smart-aleck answer is ‘Isn’t He already here?’

Biblically, we know that it isn’t for us to know about the return of Christ (which I assume is who is meant specifically by the word ‘God’).  However, as many of you know, I’ve not been much on investing on what might happen.  I do invest in what God wants us to do until He decides to take charge of all matters.

We are only told to be ready for the return.  While some apocalyptic writings like Revelation have valuable messages for us to learn, the essence of who we are called to be by God is making sure we are wearing the white robes when it is time to surround the Divine Throne shouting ‘Holy Holy Holy!’.

To be ready means to ask the question, ‘what does God want me to be and do right now’.  My answer?  God wants me to reach way down inside me and choose to be a strong believer---- to believe that God made me a new creation and that, through Christ, I am empowered to do and be and say things that are reflective of the same love and grace I received from God.

To be ready means to then put my faith into action--- to make visible what I believe in my heart.  This means to love my neighbor; to help the needy; to welcome the stranger; to inspire the hopeless; to teach the seeker; to care for the sick.

And if I can believe and if my faith is reflected in my actions (for faith without works is dead), then when Jesus does come back, I can only hope that He will have a white robe for me to put on and a place around His throne so we can have a historic worship service.

Is God coming soon?  Let’s assume He is.  As a result, let’s be ready just in case that assumption tends to be correct.  And if it isn’t correct, then when this life is over at least we can say we lived by faith and hope that God’s grace is sufficient to fill in the gaps.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Come See God's Face!

Hello Emmanuel,

THIS SUNDAY!!!  It’s National Back To Church Sunday!  You are invited to worship with each other at 9:00 or 10:30.  A light breakfast will be served in the Fellowship Hall.  Free food tastes best!

September has brought a new change to my newsletter.  September will be Ask Pastor Joe instead of Monday Morning Pulpit.  Submit your questions to me via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I’ll give you an answer.  Who knows?  It might be a good one.

How many people in the Bible have seen God face to face besides Moses?

It seems like a simple question…. And then….  Ugh!

Exodus 33:20 states that no one can see God’s face and live.  John 1:18 says no one has seen God except Jesus Christ.    But yet 33:11 says Moses talked to God in the Tent of Meeting ‘face to face.’…. ????    what????

There are other biblical examples of people ‘seeing God’, though always in a certain form.  Jacob saw God appearing as a man (Gen 32:30).  In Judges 13, Sampson’s parents saw God ‘as an angel’.  And, of course, Jesus is believed to be God ‘in the flesh’.  Also, the Bible states that ‘the LORD appeared to Abraham’; ‘the LORD visited Sarah’; ‘Enoch walked with God’; ‘the LORD appeared to Isaac’; on and on….

The question is a difficult one because of how we interpret God’s presence with someone.  Often, we do not think in the literal.  We can think in spiritual terms as if ‘feeling’ God’s presence among us.  One could even argue that Moses did not actually see God ‘face to face’, but that ‘face to face’ is simply describing the kind of relationship they had (i.e. ‘as a man speaks to a friend – Exodus 33:11).

So my answer is that no one else has actually seen God’s face and maybe not even Moses.  I give this answer because, consistently, the Scripture describes how God’s glory is so fierce and awesome that we could not see it in its entirety and live.  God does appear to us, but only in ways that we can comprehend.

And the best avenue to comprehending God is to look at and speak ‘face to face’ with Jesus.  Of all the examples of God appearing to people, I believe Jesus is the closest we can come to seeing God’s face.  He is God incarnate and One who is willing to speak to you ‘face to face’.  Go into your ‘Tent of Meeting’ and have that relationship. 

To read more, go to http://www.immanuelapproach.com/2012/08/15/people-in-scripture-who-saw-god-appendix-5/.  It describes in more detail about God’s appearances in the Bible.

In the meantime, consider how God may appear to you today.  Pay attention!  Don’t miss Him!

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Ask Pastor Joe: The Ethnic Dilemma

Hello Emmanuel,

September has brought a new change to my newsletter.  September will be Ask Pastor Joe instead of Monday Morning Pulpit.  Submit your questions to me via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I’ll give you an answer.  Who knows?  It might be a good one.

If Noah and his family repopulated the earth, how are there red, yellow, black and white people?

When this question came to me, I thought ‘Oh no!’  This goes into the category of really tough questions that seek to align biblical narrative with science.  There are often no easy answers and sometimes no good answers.  The truth is that this is a highly debatable subject with no clear-cut answer.  Noah, his wife, his 3 sons and their wives went about repopulating the world after the flood.  So how did various ethnicities come about?  So let me give you a couple of theories and then my perspective.

The first theory revolves around the wives of Noah’s sons.  There are no details on who they were or where they were from.  There isn’t any mention of how many wives Noah’s sons had.  They could have had more than one, solving the problem of the science of DNA.  In addition, ethnicity was not described.  They could have been of any race.  This allows for the ark to hold people of various ethnicities and thus having children of various ethnicities over the course of their lives (which was hundreds of years).  This doesn’t solve the apparent problem of incest, but that wasn’t related to the question, so I don’t have to answer that… whew!

The second theory is not as popular with conservative traditionalists.  It considers that the flood didn’t cover the entire world.  It only covered the world as the author of Genesis saw it (or as the tellers of the flood story saw it).  Certainly, in those days, a person’s world-view was much different than ours.  We understand the world as a globe with hundreds of thousands of miles of land.  In those days, a person’s ‘world’ would have been only a large region; maybe as big as the area now known as the Middle East, but maybe not even that big.  They certainly didn’t see the world as a planetary body.  As a result, other areas of the world as we know it would still have been populated, allowing for the ‘world’ to be repopulated and allowing for various ethnicities.

A third and even less popular theory revolves around the literary approach to communicating God’s grace.   That is, the ‘truth’ in the story is that God is a gracious God, but also a God who has standards of living.  The accuracy of the details of the flood story is insignificant compared to the truth that God gets angry at a world that denies Him, but allows for a new start when people turn to Him.  Those who only embrace the large point of the story are less concerned about the problems in the details.

So where am I at?  Once I found myself getting lost in the details, I heard God tell me to get focused on what God says is important.  A long time ago I decided to identify the major themes of the Biblical narrative.  I identified these themes, put them in a process and called it the Discipleship Pathway.  Many of you call it the Circle Chart.  Noah’s story is one of justice, grace and promises.  I am content on relying on that. 

Stay tuned to next week.  Another question.  More answers.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Careful What You Believe

Hello Emmanuel,

September will bring a new change to my newsletter.  September will be Ask Pastor Joe instead of Monday Morning Pulpit.  Submit your questions to me via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I’ll give you an answer.  Who knows?  It might be a good one.

If you worry about the worst; look for the worst; expect the worst; then the worst just might happen.  In counseling terms this is called ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.  Self-fulfilling prophecy is when believing something hard enough causes behavior changes that actually bring that something to fruition.

I used to think this was a bunch of bunk.  I don’t anymore.

I once talked to a person who had emotional wounds from being abandoned as a child.  Her dad, mom, sister and first husband all walked out of her life without any provocation on her part.  She had very little in any kind of support network.  Needless to say, she lived in fear of other people abandoning her as well.

The result is that her defense mechanisms disallowed her to get close to anyone.  She was constantly on her guard, wanting to prevent any further emotional scars from anyone else.  In short, her behavior actually encouraged her fears to be realized and people began distancing themselves from her as a result of her actions.  She was scared of more people leaving her life and her fear caused her to behave in such a way that made her fears become realized…. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

I wonder if we Christians can turn that psychological phenomenon on its head and make it a positive force.  If you believe firmly enough that the Church is the hands and feet of God, would that not cause you to behave in such a manner that would cause the Church to be the hands and feet of God?  Would believing that God loves you make you more loving?  Would believing that God forgives you make you more forgiving?  I wonder.  The link of faith to behavior is not that far of a journey.  Indeed, it may be one in the same.  ‘Faith without works is dead’.  Hmmmm…

I invite you to believe really hard!  Expect the best from God.  Maybe the result of such faith will bring out the best in you.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Ask Pastor Joe Month

Hello Emmanuel,

This is your chance.  August is Ask Pastor Joe Month.  Throughout September, I am going to go about answering any question you have for me.  I have already received 8 different questions of various types.  ‘How did Noah and his family repopulate the world’?  ‘Does God Hate The Bengals?’  ‘What is meant by ‘Holy Ground?’  ‘Would God be pleased by how we use our riches?’

You have about 2 weeks to submit any question you’d like.  I promise that I will answer it in some form (sermon, blog, email, etc).  I will not reveal who submitted the questions.  They can cover any topic or issue that you would like. 

I am interested in what questions you have in mind.  You can write your question on paper and submit it in the offering plate; email me at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com; call me at 833-5219; or communicate to me in any other form that I can understand (in other words, no smoke signals or languages besides English).

Am I worried?  Yes.  I don’t doubt that heavy research is in my future.  I also expect some questions to be very personal while other questions will be on topics I have never considered.  Either way, I look forward to it.  Our spirituality should not be void of asking all kinds of questions and searching for the answers.  It is one way that I believe prayers can be answered.  So ask away!

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Value the Lasts

Hello Emmanuel,

This coming school year is a year of lasts.  Joey is a senior and, with it, comes all the last things he’ll do.  He’s already had his last band camp (and had the joy of having his sister join him).  Soon it will be his last first day of school; his last second day of school; his last fooball game; his last parade; his last Fall concert; his last Christmas break; his last…..

This will be the 4^th time Kim and I have gone through a year of lasts.  We seem to appreciate and value more the senior year than any of the other years.  Why is that?

Today will be the last August 8^th, 2016 that I will ever experience.  Shouldn’t I value today like any other last?  Unfortunately we get into a mode where every day seems like any day.  The truth of it is that each day is unique.  No day is like any other day.  No year is like any other year.  The uniqueness that time brings us should be cherished as if we will not see its like again…. Because we will not.

After High School, Joey will go to college and we will see another 4 year cycle (please, God, let it be only 4 years).  We will see more lasts as you see more lasts on this very day.  I invite you to cherish each moment of this gift of life.  Treat the moment like you’ll never see it again because you won’t ever see it again.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Questions and Answers

Hello Emmanuel,

One of the tasks of a pastor, I believe, is to speak to the heart of those who come seeking answers.  It’s a part of my job that is the most challenging and also the most rewarding.  I don’t always have answers and, if I do, there isn’t any guarantee they are the right answers.  However, I do try to always give a biblical perspective on tough questions and hope it at least feeds the soul a little bit.

During the month of August, you are invited to submit to me your questions.  The questions can be about anything and be as tough or as easy as you want to make them.  Theological, social, political, athletic, comical, arbitrary, spiritual, historical…. Anything.

Come September, I will make the attempt to answer every question, be it in a sermon, email, blog or otherwise.  You can send me your questions via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com or you can write them on a piece of paper and put them in the offering plate.

Yes, I know, I’ve opened myself up for all kinds of stuff.  I’m okay with it as long as you are okay receiving all kinds of answers.  I look forward to this.  It may be a little fun.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe