Tag Archives: Associate Reformed Presbyterian

Taking the Call

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No caller is more persistent Rachel from ‘Vehicle Services.’   She has been trying to reach you.   She wants to speak to your vehicle’s owner with critical information about the warranty.   And no anti-spam strategy dulls her enthusiasm or tenacity.  

If you ignore her, she barrages you with even more calls.  If you attempt to speak to Paul, her associate, to explain that you have no warranty and need no warranty, she continues to call.   If you register her number with donotcall.gov, she uses another of her 10,000 listings.   She is unstoppable.   And despite her bold claims, even Attorney General, Leslie Rutledge cannot impede the indefatigable Rachel or her friend Veronica who calls about your student loans.

Most calls these days are from spammers and scammers, suspicious characters who are up to no good.   So, we don’t answer numbers not in our contact lists.  Our phones routinely report incoming calls as ‘Spam-Risk’ or ‘Telemarketer.’   Even familiar numbers are often spoofed by anonymizing software to give numbers in the Caribbean a local area code and exchange.   I have even gotten spam calls from my own number!   This intrusion of suspicious callers makes us suspicious of any calling.  And of every calling.

In a recent interview with NPR, Adam Smith, editor of the Nobel Prize’s official notification website, NobelPrize.org, laughed that often Nobel Laureates are suspicious when he calls.  And they often hang up on him, thinking he is a crank caller.  Especially since he calls them late at night or in the wee hours of the morning to preempt the flood of calls that inevitably follow once the announcement becomes public.  

How many calls have we ignored or hung up because we suspected a crank caller or spam-risk?  We all want to pursue our calling — to fulfill the great purpose for which we exist.  But every calling begins with a caller.  And while some callers cannot be trusted, there are calls we need to take.  Are you able to distinguish the spam-risk from the life-changing call?

Moses felt as sense of calling.  But he ran ahead of the God’s call.  He did things his own way in his own time.  As a result, Israelites rejected him and Egyptians sought to kill him.  He fled to Midian and settled into mid-life in the obscurity of life as a shepherd. Hardly the mighty hero, he grew into old age with the sheep, while Egyptian oppression continued unchecked.  But God was at work. He was not through with Moses.  At just the right time, God calls him into action.   Out of a burning bush at the foot of a desolate mountain at the far reaches of Moses’ pasturage, God spoke and called Moses to deliver his people.

Moses receives the call he always wanted. But why now? Why him? Why not someone else?  Perhaps this is a divine spam-risk? A scam? A crank call? Moses fears the caller and repeatedly attempts to hang up on the calling.   But for all Rachel’s persistence as a caller, God is more so — tenacious and effective.  His gifts and his calling are irrevocable.  His calling cannot be dodged or declined.  And the calling of Moses has important things to teach each of us about our own calling. 

Every Christian has a vocation.  Every follower of Christ is gifted and called to serve the Lord, the Body of Christ, and the world.  What is your calling?  Have you heard?  Have you heeded?   Or did you hang up, thinking God’s call was a spam-risk, a scam, or a crank-call? Join us as we examine Exodus 3:1-10 and consider how the call of Moses is unique, but also an important pattern for God’s call in every Christian’s life.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Learning to Cry

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Crying? There’s no crying in math! Or so I thought.  Echoing Tom Hanks’ iconic line from A League of Their Own, my children often hear me declare ‘there’s no crying in math – it’s simply facts and figures, not emotion.’  And yet, for all my feeling that there should not be any crying in math, it does indeed exist.   It is not the crying of pain, or pleading, or even sadness – it is the crying of overwhelming disorientation as operators and operands leap from the page and swirl in a tornadic vortex, mixed and disordered beyond repair.  There is crying in mathematics.  Its angst is not merely the angst of computational failure.   And many tears have been shed over math in our home.

Crying is peculiar if you think about it.   While the production of tears, or lacrimation, has a cleansing effect removing debris from the eye, the physiological and psychological dimensions of crying go much further.   We cry when we are afraid, sad, happy, angry, relieved, or surprised.  And these emotional tears differ in their chemical composition from other tears.   They have higher concentrations of protein-based hormones, including prolactin, and also the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin – a painkiller produced when one experiences stress. Emotional tears are also more viscous, remaining on a person’s face longer thus more visible to others.

Crying communicates what words cannot.  Before children speak, they cry to communicate.  And even after we speak, crying communicates what words cannot.   Humans are the only creatures that cry.  Our tears transmit a depth and nuance of human emotion that even the infinite subtleties of our mother tongue cannot express.   We feel this in Paul’s discussion of the work of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27

Groanings too deep for words.   That is where prayer often takes us.   John Owen, in his treatise on prayer, emphasized written prayer.  He rightly observed that vocabulary governs thoughtful expression in prayer.  But there are depths of joy, sorrow, and uncertainty that outpace our conscious expression – groanings too deep for words. 

“Deep calls to deep” the Psalmist laments.   And deep answers deep!  This is the truth of crying out to God.   His ear is tuned to his children’s cry.   He hears, he sees, he remembers, and he knows.   No sorrow, trial, joy, crisis, or struggle slips past his loving gaze.  The Hebrew people had been slaves of countless Pharaohs through centuries of Egyptian history.   They cried out.  And God heard.   They learned not only to cry over their condition, but to ‘cry out’ and to ‘cry out to God.’   Exodus 2:23-25 shows this dynamic in a remarkable way.  Four different expressions of crying are answered by four specific responses from God.

The Hebrews learned to cry.   Perhaps this seems absurd.   After all crying is not learned.  We have known how to cry from day one.   Most of us were born crying.   No one taught us to cry at weddings or funerals, to cry when pain grips us, or to cry when a loved one returns home.  Some cultures cry more, some less.  Women cry more than men.  Yet we all cry.   What we must learn is ‘to whom to cry.’   Until we cry out to the Lord, our crying, though cathartic, is like shouting into the darkness.   But when we cry to the Lord, he sees, he hears, he remembers, and he draws near.   Only he will answer our cry.  Only he can make the difference. Join us this week as we examine Exodus 2:23-25 and consider what it teaches us about learning to cry out to God.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

11/27/2022 | “Who Is This” | Matthew 1:1-17, 21

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As the New Testament opens, God places Jesus in a dysfunctional family.  A family into which we have been adopted.  A family story that shows God’s faithfulness and grace to those who do not have it together.  And in his story, we find hope for our own story.  Join us as we examine Matthew 1:1-17 and consider the question so many asked about Jesus – “Who is this?”

02/27/2022 | “Undercover” | Exodus 2:1-10

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God sometimes goes undercover. But he is never absent. His providence in sparing baby Moses points to a later deliverer whose birth, death and rising again deliver from sin’s slavery and death. Listen to “Undercover” as Exodus 2 unfolds God’s providence and challenges us to live by faith that has ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

02/20/2022 | “Under Pressure” | Exodus 1:15-22

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Pressure reveals who you are. Under intense pressure Shiphrah and Puah lived out their faith. Their quiet, principled resistance thwarted the cruelty of the tyrant. While Pharaohs passed into obscurity, these women’s names are remembered. What does it look like to live faithfully under pressure? Join us as we examine Exodus 1 and see what it looks like to walk by faith under pressure.

02/13/2022 | “When God Seems Silent” | Exodus 1:8-14

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We’re afraid of silence. It unsettles, makes us insecure, afraid. But no silence unsettles like the silence of God. Scripture consoles us that God is a not silent. He reveals Himself, is knowable. Yet at times He seems silent.  What then?

God’s people were oppressed in Egypt under the hand of a xenophobic, genocidal Pharaoh.   God’s promises were unfolding as he blessed the people with children yet as their blessing increased, so did persecution and adversity.   But God did not deliver them.   Why does God allow times of adversity and suffering in the lives of his people?  We all ask this and many experience this personally.   Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:8-14 and wrestle with the question of why God sometimes appears silent.

Going Undercover

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“Go outside and play!”  That was an important part of my parent’s parenting strategy.  It was not a cop-out – but legitimate instruction.  When they needed privacy for parental conference, or we were too much underfoot for my mother, or when we moped around decrying, “I’m bored,” the Rx was “go outside and play.”  The only ‘screens’ in those days covered our doors and windows.  So outside was the place of adventure, imagination and industry.

And go outside we did.  Building forts in the woods, riding our bikes for miles and miles, gathering the neighborhood gang for baseball, acrobatics on the Boyd’s trampoline, and our favorite game – Spycraft.   Don’t look for it at Game Stop.   Spycraft was a game of our own invention.   It was a simple game.   A hapless neighbor working outside, washing their car, or completing some home improvement project became our target.   We began at the point in our cul-de-sac farthest from our quarry.  And we would work ourselves as close as possible without being observed by anyone.   And in a neighborhood in which watching the neighbors was the unwritten covenant, this was no small challenge. 

Hedges, trees, cars, other yard décor in our neighbors’ yards were carefully navigated.   Features which had their own unique dangers.   The game could go for hours.   It took time, careful movement, stealthy concealment and an indefatigable desire to draw close to our object.   We were surprisingly effective, or so we thought.

Have you ever thought that others are working carefully, tirelessly, intentionally to draw nearer to you? Though their actions are undetectable as we go about our own lives unaware, they are watching, listening, loving us from a distance?   This has been the theme of many great love stories and is a beautiful part of The Great Love Story, the Bible.   While our God is a God who reveals himself through His Word, by His Spirit and most fully in His Son, much of his love and care for us goes undetected.  

Jesus noted in John 5, “my Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”   The psalmist notes in Psalm 121 that, “He who watches over you will neither slumber, nor sleep.”  And this reminds us that even as we sleep, the Lord is awake, preparing grace for us in the coming hours and days.  This is the sweet doctrine of Providence.    Our Westminster Shorter Catechism expresses it succinctly and well.

Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Nothing is out of his control.  No circumstance, no crisis, no sorrow, no past, present or future action.   He is the God who governs all his creatures and their actions – to graciously redeem, restore, and bless his beloved people.  Through providence he works “in all things… for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)   Do you believe this?  Can you rest in the truth that even when you don’t see him drawing near, seeing, hearing, and knowing you and your life, that He is always at work, even to this very day?  

Amram and Jochebed, Moses’ parents, believed in the providence of God.   They lived in trying times, oppressed by slavery and death.  Marriage and family seem ill advised. Yet they trusted in God’s providence rather than fate, or circumstance.   Though their grasp of God was in spiritual infancy, God granted them sufficient faith that his promises could not fail.  Even when God seems unseen he is seen in his providence.  The poet William Cowper would later express the ethos of their faith in his hymn, God Moves In A Mysterious Way.

God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust him for his grace;
behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding ev’ry hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain.

William Cowper

Exodus 2 unfolds the remarkable providences of God that fulfill his promises to Jacob’s offspring.   Yet he is still undercover.   Sometimes God goes undercover in our lives.  But he is never absent.  The providences that bring about the birth of a deliverer for Hebrew slaves anticipates a greater deliverer whose birth, death and rising again deliver us from sin’s slavery and death.  Join us this week as we examine Exodus 2:1-10 and consider the undercover God and the challenges we face to live by a faith that has ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Under Pressure

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Few things test a friendship like a self-move.  A self-move exposes the flotsam and jetsam of your life and quickly sifts friends from mere acquaintances.  I have self-moved.  And I have shared in the fellowship of sufferings of friends who unwisely chose the way of pain.  I am no stranger to the perils and pitfalls of moving day.    Friendships are tested.  Marriages are tested.   Logistics are tested – and harshly judged.   And most importantly, packing skills are tested.  

Packing a truck makes clear who has mastered Tetris and who has not.   And if that truck is a pickup, you face the daunting prospect of rigging the tarps.   Your scant repertoire of three or four boy scout knots is no match for the gale force of the Interstate.   Unless you are an engineer with experience testing concept designs in a wind tunnel or perhaps a farmer, you probably have no idea what is required to secure a load with tarps.  

The relentless 75 mph wind produces far more pressure than we imagine as we sit behind protected glass cruising the highways and byways.  Odds are you will arrive at your destination with rigging in tatters, flapping in the breeze like Himalayan prayer flags.   Intense pressure makes quick work of any false claims to competence.  And what is true of our tarps is even more true of our convictions.

Who you are under pressure is who you are.   Stress reveals fault lines.   Weakness buckles.  And the strength bears the load.  Pressure reveals who we really are, what is really inside.   Pressure blasts away facades, social conventions, and political correctness.   In the crisis, who you are, what you are, is clearly revealed.   We all think we will stand up under pressure.  We are sure we will hold fast our convictions.   But will we?

Proverbs 24:10 warns, “if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” And Proverbs 20:6 observes, “many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?”   The Apostle Paul also warns us, “therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12)    Do we fear God more than man?   Will we resist pressure to compromise our faith?  Will we meet persecution like those in Revelation who  “conquered by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto death?” (Rev 12:11)

How will we handle pressure when it comes?   Who we are under pressure is who we really are.   We see this first in Exodus, not in the lives of Moses or Joshua, but in the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah.  We read simply that they feared God more than Pharaoh.   They put themselves,  the midwives who worked for them, and their families at extraordinary risk because of their convictions.   We often focus our scrutiny of these women on their truthfulness, but their courage is prodigious.

The midwives were not national leaders.  Nor did they not seek leadership roles in their community.  But their quiet, principled resistance thwarted the cruelty of the tyrant.  The very policy that Pharaoh thought would exterminate the Israelites was overturned by God to raise up and equip the deliverer through whom he would set his people free.

The midwives’ names are remembered, while pharaohs passed into obscurity.  And these godly and faithful women assume far greater historic importance than those all-powerful tyrants who ruled Egypt.  Their faithfulness had a great part to play in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan.   And so does ours.   Under great pressure, they lived by faith.   What about you?  Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:15-22 and consider what it looks like to live by faith under pressure.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

02/06/2022 | “Promises Kept” | Exodus 1:1-7

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Children’s stories are never just for children. Though simple, they are not simplistic. The same is true for the Old Testament. Tempted to read it as moral example or historical background, we often miss its meaning. For example, Exodus is not just a heroic story of Moses, a narrative of liberation, or a bridge from patriarchy to monarchy. But it reveals much more. Join us as we begin this story of promises kept. And a story of grace for our own lives as well.

Crickets

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Chuck Pugh was a masterful negotiator. He was not articulate nor prescient. He was no maven of technology, but he wielded the one tool in his negotiation toolbox with devastating effect. Chuck knew the power of silence. He understood that prolonged silence would awaken profound uncertainty in the minds of vendors regarding their proposals. We witnessed this time and time again.

Vendors would make their pitch to our team – hardware, software, development environments, networking gear. As engineers we would sit like a silent chorus in a Greek tragedy as Chuck worked his magic. They offered and Chuck would sit, stare, and create a looming silence. He never spoke first. Like men on the anxious bench, the vendors would offer up concession after concession. All born out of the insecurity his silence conceived.

Salesmen are afraid of silence. It is the one objection they are not trained to overcome. But then most of us are afraid of silence. It unsettles us. It makes us insecure, uncertain, afraid. Nothing heightens tension and drama like silence. We declare, speak, express and the void says nothing back. Nothing is more invalidating than silence. We think more silence is to be desired. And then we spend the day alone.

But no silence is more unsettling than the silence of God. One of the most comforting truths of Scripture is that God is a not silent. He is a God is reveals Himself, who is knowable, who is known. One of the great fears of paganism is uncertainty about who a god is, how he feels about us, and what he requires. But the God of scripture is not like the false gods of the nations. He is the God who is not silent. He reveals himself in his works and in his word. Yet sometimes He seems silent. The words of Psalm 22 reflected this feeling.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.

Psalm 22:1-2

Even the Lord Jesus, in his human nature felt the weight of these words as he bore the wrath and curse of God for our sin. Has God every appeared silent in your life? Has you every felt he was far from saving you? So far from your cries of anguish? Like one who will not answer your cries, day and night? How does this square with the Scripture promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, that he is always at work, his ear attentive to the cry of his children?

Scripture invites us into the lives of many to whom God seemed silent. Mary and Martha at the graveside of Lazarus and the children of Israel in Egypt are examples. God seemed silent. Their adversity was not a consequence of sin or unfaithfulness. Yet, suffering increased and deliverance was withheld. Is God silent? Is he far from saving? Is he unconcerned? Is he not all that we believed him to be? What are we to think when God seems silent?

God’s people were oppressed in Egypt under the hand of a xenophobic, genocidal Pharaoh. God’s promises were unfolding as he blessed the people with children yet as their blessing increased, so did persecution and adversity. But God did not deliver them. Why does God allow times of adversity and suffering in the lives of his people? We all ask this and many experience this personally. Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:8-14 and wrestle with the question of why God sometimes appears silent.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.