Some 30 years ago, I stopped by a convenience store owned by a couple I went to church with when I was a little boy. The wife was a perfect example of what I preached about on Sunday. I told her about the church I was serving at the time and how loving the people were. She was not impressed. She patted the mass of hair piled up on her head and asked me, “But do they have the hair standard?”

Reading the Bible, studying the Bible . . . it’s something we talk a lot around Christ Church, and it’s one of the reasons we came into being. God has given us one tangible object as a witness to God’s loving work, and if we’re going to be the people of God, we need to know as much about it as possible. 

Through studying and reading the Bible, we seek to know Jesus Christ, and learn how to be like him, and how to do the things he said to do. We can only accomplish this by spending time in God’s word. 

It isn’t easy to read the Bible with an open mind. We all bring to the Bible what we’ve heard or been taught, and it is difficult to lay that aside and let the Bible speak on its own.

I had a professor in seminary who used the example of a template. A template is a pattern made of metal, plastic, or paper, used for making many copies of a shape or to help cut material accurately. If you wanted to cut a toy car out of wood, you’d place the template over your block of wood and cut around the pattern. The result? A little wooden car in the exact (depending on the person doing the cutting) shape of the template.

Going through a box the other day, I found a program from a Kentucky camp meeting where I played the piano back in 1986. I used to do a lot of that. Every summer for decades I either led the singing or played the piano at some camp meeting or revival not only in Kentucky but also in Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama. 

Those were exciting, inspirational days! Depending on your location, there might be 1,000 or more people taking time out of their summer to attend a camp meeting at places with names like Zion’s Hill, Silver Lake and Chula Vista. 

There was a time back in the 70s to early 80s when there were more restaurants on one stretch of University Drive than in all of Birmingham! Darryl’s 1817, Steak & Ale, the Fogcutter . . . all celebration destinations . . . all big deals at the time . . . and all gone.

For decades, I always celebrated my birthday at Red Lobster, which was farther east on University Drive. I say “was” on purpose, because it, too, is gone!  March, my birthday month (as if you could ever forget), is always “Lobster Fest,” and even if my family didn’t go out any other time of the year, we went to Red Lobster for my birthday. But when I went there this past March for my birthday, it was closed for remodeling. So they said.

I have new neighbors! They’re  foreigners (well, they’re from the West Coast). 

Last week they were initiated into Alabama culture by experiencing their first tornado warning. I’ve explained to them that, historically, the tornadoes in our area have followed the same paths, and that, historically, the storm paths go south of us or go north of us.

“Please do what God tells you to do!” So says the sign stuck to a pine tree at an exit of I-65 somewhere between Cullman and Birmingham (I shared a photo of it Sunday - it hangs over my desk at home). 

For me, it’s a good reminder of what I’m to be about. In John 15, Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and “this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Pretty simple, isn’t it? Love God . . . Love Others. It always comes down to that. 

Church was and is about coming together to see “on earth as it is in heaven” actually happen. Yes, we come together to worship, but the focus of that worship is on God and what God has done and is doing to redeem his lost creation. And then, we leave to serve - feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison – and by serving this way, we do the Father’s will.

One of my favorite parts of Easter is singing He Lives! The last line of the refrain says it all: “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!”

That really is the ultimate evidence. When that testimony is multiplied in the hearts of multitudes of other believers, and you see the evidence in changed lives, to quote one of the skeptics, “at the least you have to admit something happened.”

Since Easter, I’ve been speaking and writing about the evidence that supports the resurrection. Of course, we can’t look at physical evidence because there isn’t any (the tomb is empty). But there is other evidence that really needs to be considered.

Doubts . . . questions . . . there are times when we might well have them. One writer referred to them as the “dark night of the soul” – those painful and extremely difficult periods in life when we ask, “where is God?” For the other 10 disciples, their “dark night” was only Friday and Saturday. For Thomas, it went on for a week. But, Thomas, even though he’s holding out on the resurrection, hasn’t chucked the whole thing.

The resurrection of Jesus transformed cowards into heroes. Boldly proclaiming what they witnessed and fearlessly facing the enemies before whom they previously cowered, the disciples of Jesus – men and women – would “turn the world upside down” with the message of the resurrection.

There are some who claim the resurrection of Jesus, the key event in the history of humanity, is baloney and, honestly, if you can debunk the resurrection, then our entire faith falls apart.

Why do we do what we do?

I think that’s a dandy question to ask at all points of our lives, and it’s an important one to ask as believers.

Forgiveness isn’t easy, but neither is anything really worth doing. But forgiveness is necessary for our wholeness as children of God. Paul urges the church in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And the supreme example of that is Jesus hanging on the cross, praying “Father, forgive them.”

When God forgives us, God cancels the sin debt against us. When we forgive, we have to cancel the debt that we believe someone owes us. When we don’t forgive, we are saying, “That person owes me an apology.” But Ephesians 4:32 calls us to forgive others as God has forgiven us. That means concluding that they don’t owe us anything. Not even an apology.

For one thing, we learn God wants us to be honest with him. He’s a Big God and he’s been around a very long time and has seen and heard it all. Nothing you are feeling or nothing you have to say is going to take God by surprise in the least. God’s never going to say, “O, that’s a new one.”

There are some people who it may never be possible to reconcile with. Just make sure it is their problem and not yours. Make certain that your heart is free and your hands clean, that your attitude toward them is pure.

Lent invites us to “listen” to the music of our lives. Lent invites us to take honest stock of our hearts and deal with what’s lurking in their deepest recesses. Lent calls is to be honest – honest to ourselves and honest to God.

Several years ago I preached on the “essentials” of the Christian life. These are essential because they are the guide rails that keep us from running off the road. They are essential because they enculturate our Christian faith into our lives. They are essential because Christ practiced them, and we want to be like Christ. They are essential because they ensure that the things we give our lives to will matter for eternity. They are essential because when we face life’s challenges, we can live lives of faithfulness!