If you like video more than reading, watch me say this IN A SUIT!
The cultural mood is always shifting. Sometimes the world becomes more optimistic, and sometimes the world becomes more pessimistic.
Optimism flows when things are going well, the economy is on the rise, and good government and good policies steer and shape our world.
Pessimism grows when the stock market dips, jobs are lost, and dysfunction and poor policies shape our world.
Let me encourage you: unsubscribe. (Don’t unsubscribe from this newsletter (!!), but unsubscribe your heart from the rising and falling emotional whims—the ever-changing smiles and frowns—of this world. Don’t chase approval from broken people; don’t chase popularity from a broken world.
If you hitch your heart to this world, “If you marry the spirit of this age,” said the Anglican, William Ralph Inge, “you will be a widow in the next.”
As Marcus Aurelius said, “Fame in a world like this is worthless” (Meditations, 5.33.d).
I agree with Marcus’s conclusion, though for different reasons that he maintained. Here’s the difference: there is a world that is not worthless, a kingdom that cannot be shaken that we are receiving, a city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. That’s Hebrews 12:22, and that’s where we are coming to.
So, because there is a world that is not worthless, a kingdom that is real and meaningful, let’s get to work.
Psalm 126:5–6 [5] Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! [6] He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (ESV)
Some of you grew up in churches with worship services and youth groups that functioned as pep rallies for Christianity. There were no sad songs, no times of lament or grief. Worship services moved from celebratory to exuberant, very comfortable in the first three verses of Psalm 126. And those verses are true; Christians have many reasons to celebrate.
But the prevailing mood among many of the Christians that I talk with is more pessimistic. Deconstruction is the mood of the moment as people focus on the brokenness in our churches, the brokenness in our world, and the brokenness of our own lives. To my more pessimistic Christian friends, I would say that Psalm 126 is here for you. There are tears and weeping in this Psalm for you.
So let me encourage all of us to unsubscribe from the rising and falling emotional whims of our culture and get to work. Cynicism is not a fruit of the Spirit.
Notice how this Psalm, with all its prayers and petitions, with all its tears and weeping, is preoccupied with sowing—working for the Kingdom and planting genuine Kingdom seed in the ground.
Don’t get cynical; get busy. Don’t let sadness or brokenness or lament stop us from serving the Lord who has called us to go out (1) weeping and (2) bearing the seed for sowing.
Do not follow one of those commands without the other.
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We don’t have worship “hot takes” here. Instead of hot takes, we have … cool … gifts?
I’ll work on it. See you soon!