Good afternoon.  I trust all is going well for you today.

I wish there were some easier way to break the following news to you, but there isn’t.  So I guess I will just plunge in to let you know how God has led Luana and me in a very difficult decision.

Twelve years ago this month I submitted my resume to NCC.  The search committee and elders followed that up with a telephone interview or two, and in April, 1997 we flew here from Portland OR to candidate for the position of pastor.  That Sunday I promised that if I came, I would love people and preach God’s Word.  That, in the briefest of statements, has always been my goal as a pastor.  The church family extended a call to us, and we accepted.

You would have to have been here a dozen years ago to understand this fully, but suffice it to say that prior to our arrival NCC had suffered through a difficult time resulting in disruption, hurt, and confusion.  When I have occasion to review where the church was when I arrived, as I have recently, and where it is now, I believe I have accomplished what God intended when he brought me here.  I have done my best to fulfill what I said I would do.   

A couple of years ago, before Luana and I took our 40^th anniversary trip to Maui, I had been thinking and praying about whether I’d accomplished what God sent me here to do.  I spent more than a little time in the pre-dawn hours over there looking down on the harbor and contemplating that question.  I thought about leaving then, but I had no clear indication from the Lord that I should do so. 

But I do now.  

In my opinion, at this juncture you need fresh vision and new leadership.  I am out of gas.  When I listen to younger fellow pastors talk about their respective ministries, I realize that I have no ideas and little motivation.  To continue like this is not fair to the church.  I believe that it’s time for a change for you and for me.  Therefore, last night I tendered my resignation to the elders.  It is to be effective April 19.  

I have applied with IPM, an organization that contracts with churches to supply them with interim pastoral care until a full-time pastor is called.  I will be taking training with that organization the end of April in Davenport, Iowa. Until we sell our house, Luana and I will continue to live in Malcolm; but to facilitate your pastoral search we will not be attending NCC.  We are most grateful for the years God has allowed us to work together.

This has been a most difficult decision to make.  It would have been much easier if you all were not so dear to us.  God will lead you to a new pastoral leader, and you will need to stand together with him in making Jesus known in northwest Lancaster County and elsewhere.  But let me assure you that though our connection to you will change, our relationship with you will not. You will always be in our hearts, and the love we have for you will never fade.  

Now, then, I want you still to have the very best of days, and be a blessing to at least one other person along the way.

In the summer of 1964, when I was 17, I had a problem.  Actually, I probably had many problems at that stage of my adolescent career, but I am thinking of one in particular.  I was going to Maranatha Bible Camp for Youth Week, and I knew there were going to be two girls there whom I knew, and wanted to know better.  the problem:  How was I going to be able spend time with each and keep myself out of trouble while doing so?  

What I thought would be a problem never materialized.  In the course of that week I fell hopelessly in love with the one named Luana Norman.  I don’t know that I knew I was in love at first, but apparently my father did.  Not long after camp was over he said to me as we were driving down the street, “You got bit pretty hard down there, didn’t you?”  ”Huh?” I said.  ”What do you mean, bit?”  He said, “By the love bug.”

Was I in love?  Did the fact that she was all I could think about indicate this?  There must have been other reasons for my dad to remark about it like he did.  Was this the real thing, real love?  Or was it just an infatuation, what they, whoever “they” were, called “puppy love?”  How does a person know when he’s in love?

About 2000 years ago the Corinthian Christians had a problem.  Actually, they had several problems.  But a really obvious one was that they thought they were really in love with Jesus.  They thought their abilities to exercise spectacular spiritual gifts, among these the ability to speak eloquently, were sure signs that they were really “with it” spiritually.  In his letter to them Paul told them that they could employ their gifts, using every imaginable form of speaking, and it still wouldn’t indicate that they really were in love with Jesus, because if they really were in love with him, they’d be patient with each other.  They weren’t.  If they really loved Jesus, they’d be kind to each other.  They weren’t.  If they really loved Jesus they’d not be jealous of each other.  They were.  If they really were in love with the Savior, they’d not be behaving like windbags and braggarts.  They were behaving this way.  Love for Jesus is evidenced by a lack of arrogance.  They were arrogant.  Genuine love doesn’t act disgracefully, is not self-seeking, isn’t easily provoked, and doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness. The Corinthian believers were rude to each other in worship services, concerned more about themselves than about others, easily angered, even to the point of taking each other to court, and not only tolerated gross sin in one of their members but were also proud of their tolerance.

Those folks, though spectacularly gifted by the Holy Spirit, were not really as in love with Jesus as they thought they were.

This portion of Paul’s letter to them (1 Corinthians 13) is some of the most eloquent writing he ever did.  Nobody, not even Elizabeth Barrett Browning with How Do I Love Thee?, has ever topped this.  No, it is not specifically about love between a man and a woman.  But, it certainly can be applied that way.

It’s been almost 45 years since my dad asked me about being bit by the love bug.  But I’ve got a better standard to measure that love by than mere feelings or even passion.  I might think I really am in love with Luana Norman VanCampen, but if I’m not patient with her, willing to endure her faults, I might not be as in love as I think.  If I really love her, I will be consistently kind to her.  If I am consistently unkind, I might not be as much in love as I think I am.  If I really love her, I will not seek to better myself at her expense, I will not be self-absorbed, I will not look out for myself while disregarding her needs.  if I am the most important person in my life, I certainly don’t love her as much as I think I do.  If I really love her…but, then, you get the picture, don’t you?

Do you really love Jesus?  How is it demonstrated?  Is the character of Jesus being formed in you?  Are you, and others as well, seeing indications of true love in the way you relate to them?

Are you really in love? 

By the way, if your husband or wife can’t tell that you’ve been bitten hard by the love bug in the way you relate to him or her on a regular basis, save the money you might spend on a Valentine’s card or flowers.

Have the very best of days today, and be a blessing to at least one other person.

To the right of my laptop here in the office sits a digital picture frame.  I didn’t know what such a thing was until my daughter gave me one for Christmas last year.  Do you know what it is?  It’s another form of a computer, near as I can tell.  It has memory of its own, or it can access photos from a USB flash drive, jump drive, thumb drive (whatever) or even from the memory chip of a digital camera.  Then it will cycle through all those pictures until the cows come home, or until some other notable event takes place.

 I loaded the photos of my students from India and other folks I met there on a memory device.  Amy gave me a whole bunch of shots of our family – Luana and me and her and her brothers and sisters-in-law along with those 7 grandchildren.  (We have a photo of the newest grandkid, but he or she is very small still and won’t actually appear in this world until August or September.)  So, as I sit here working, from time to time I glance over there to see who’s showing up.

Early last week it seemed that every time I did that Abby was in the screen.  Abby, most of you know, went to heaven almost four years ago.  While the pictures of her siblings and cousins reflect growth and change, Abby will forever be viewed as a beautiful brown-eyed blonde two-year old.  

I’m not normally effusively tearful or sentimental, but the dull ache that developed inside of me was real enough.  I sent e mail messages to Todd and Guinever to let them know that what I felt couldn’t compare to how they must still feel, and to let them know I was praying for them.  Then I bowed and told the Lord that I still don’t understand, and probably never will.

Many of you have had similar experiences.  You’ve laid the body of a loved one to rest, and time has marched onward.  But every once in a while your memory will be stirred.  It might be a photo, or a song, or a place.  It might be a family gathering that seems all at once incomplete.  Whatever it is, grief you thought had been buried as well is once again fresh.  

But, as the apostle wrote, we don’t grieve like those who have no hope.  As I looked at those pictures of my little granddaughter, the ache was tempered by the absolute certainty and joy that I will see her again.  I’m not required to understand.  I am required to trust in the word of a loving and powerful God.  

I pray that whatever your memory has thrust to the forefront of your mind this morning, you will be comforted with and by the Truth.

Monday I kept an appointment for the angiogram the cardiologist had prescribed. (Relax – everything is clear in my “pipes.”)  To save Luana the time of having to take me all the way back to Malcolm, I contacted Pastor Heath to see if he was in Lincoln.  We made connections at Sam’s about 11 a.m.

 PH had a couple of errands to run, not the least of which was a stop at the Interstate store possibly to buy a new battery for his Jeep.  A nice young man used his tester to determine that the current battery, which was in the vehicle when Heath bought it, was not holding a charge.  He did more than that.  His practiced eye told him that the battery was not only a used one (that’s what the label “Econopower,” or whatever it was, meant), but it was also undersized and under “amped” for that vehicle.  Who knew?  The kid then proceeded to draw the equivalent of 20 starts from the offending energy source, rendering it even more useless.

 Of course Pastor Heath bought a new battery of the correct size and cranking amperage.  Like a good steward of his resources, he decided he’d save the $20 fee for installation on the spot, opting to do that himself.  He paid for the battery and put it behind the driver’s seat.  We both climbed in and buckled up.  He turned the key, and nothing happened.  Wait a minute, something did happen – a rapid clicking noise that indicates a dead battery emanated from under the dash, or somewhere up front!

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.  Here we were at the Interstate store with a battery that had practically been pronounced DOA by the EMT.  Then we’d watched him literally suck out with his little machine whatever life remained.  We had the new battery in the car, but it wasn’t in a position to do any good.  What were we thinking!  

 That’s probably what the Interstate guy thought when he came out at our request and supplied enough power for the start.  He laughed along with us, but it may actually have been at us.  I’ve laughed about it myself several times since.

 It’s no laughing matter to find yourself short of energy in the spiritual sense.  Oh sure, each of us believers in Jesus is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and He provides the power not to sin and to live pleasing to God.  But sometimes we fail to maintain the connection, and when we do that, a variety of things can drain the vitality right out of us even while we watch, so to speak.  As we noted in connection with Daniel’s prayer of confession last Sunday, “If we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin…If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:6-7,9)  

 There is no substitute for keeping short accounts with God and with each other.  There is no substitute for maintaining the connection.  None of us wants to turn the key when we really need the power only to hear that clicking noise. 

 May our Heavenly Daddy bless you a bunch this fine day.  And, remember to be a blessing to at least one other person.

I have a real life illustration this morning of the big idea that Daniel’s been presenting to us in a variety of ways.  You recall what that idea is, don’t you?  Let me refresh your memory.

In his early teens Daniel was torn from his family and taken 600 miles away to live in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon.  To this adolescent and his three friends it might have seemed that no one was in control of the world in which they lived.  But they decided to trust in the God of their parents anyway, and as the years rolled by they received one indication after another that this God controlled not only the course of human history, but also the affairs of their individual lives.  As we shall see this week in chapter 5, He demoted Babylon after only 70 or so years of its glorious existence and promoted another empire in its place.  He also preserved Daniel through that chaotic time to counsel the new administration, as it were.

Here’s the real life illustration.  Scott Friesen is the lead pastor of Berean Bible Church (in our 3 Rivers District of Berean churches) in Grand Island.  Sunday afternoon he received a call from his brother that his dad, just 61 years old and living in Lincoln, had been taken by ambulance to a local hospital after complaining of not feeling well.  In the hospital the medical personnel determined Mr. Friesen had not had a heart attack, but did have some severely blocked coronary arteries.  They wheeled him down the hall to “clear out and open up any blockage,” saying they’d be back in a half an hour.  Scott’s dad’s final goodbye to his family was a wave from the gurney as it disappeared from view.  Moments later he was in the presence of Jesus, while Scott was en route on the Interstate.

Two weeks ago on Sunday our own Sam Schutte had an eerily similar experience, but with a different outcome.  Like Mr. Friesen, he didn’t feel well after lunch.  Like Scott’s father, Sam went to the hospital.  The diagnosis was almost identical.  But Sam not only survived the subsequent surgery, four days later he went home where he is fabulously recuperating even as I write.

There is a God in heaven, the same One with whom Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel had to do, who controls the affairs of our lives, and to whom, in the words of that ancient Babylonian king, no one can say, “What have You done?”  God is sovereign, and in his sovereignty he took Dwight Friesen to heaven and left Sam Schutte on earth.  And he did both for His own glory.

Do you believe this?  If you do, and if you submit to His sovereign authority as Daniel did, you will be prepared, as Scott and his mom and two brothers were, for whatever “uncontrollable” circumstance comes your way.  Here’s what Scott had to say in an email to the 12 fellow Berean pastors in the District:  The sting of death came too fast.  Painful tears and sobs gripped me as a I drove alone down the road…My comfort was in our great Savior who loves and lives and rescues us from all our troubles.  Dad’s heart had gone into cardiac arrest soon after the procedure to clear out his arteries began.  Doctors shocked his heart with the defibrillator and gave CPR, but this was the day ordained by the God who has loved Dad with an ancient love.

At the football game last Friday one of you shared an interesting experience with me.  In the middle of a busy day, in a setting not known to be the haunt of helpful and happy service types, you were visited by what appeared to be an angel.  Oh, not a real angel.  Or was it?  It was a person who helped you without reservation and with obvious joy.  You asked that person if he believed in angels, because he seemed to be one.  And he responded something about God working in mysterious ways.  He went on to reveal that he was a fellow believer in Jesus, and you two then talked together for more than a few minutes in a setting not normally blessed with the conviviality of its patrons.

 Isn’t it great when something like that happens, when your whole day is tempered by what some might term a chance encounter, but what is really a divine appointment? 

I remember that happening to me on the other side of the world in a Starbucks Café in the Kuala Lumpur Airport.  Her name was April, and from her seat near the counter she shepherded me through the maze of lattes and cappuccinos.  Further conversation with her revealed that she was the only female pilot/mechanic with Missionary Aviation Fellowship in the whole world.  She was serving in Sumatra, working primarily in the tsunami relief effort MAF is doing there.  She was on her way home to Eureka, CA for some time off.  She was graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in 2002. 

This all happened on Resurrection Morning back in March when Luana and I were returning from India, clear on the other side of the world.  It was not a chance encounter.  It was a divine appointment.  And we were all encouraged in our walk with Jesus as a result.

Someone might think you’re an angel if you live the Truth you profess to believe, because in the course of doing so your actions and demeanor in a grim and impersonal world will bring you into contact with people who need what you have to offer.  And that contact will be an appointment that He has set up.  Don’t miss it.

And, don’t miss this Sunday when we examine a well-known account of three men whose lives and actions demonstrated that obeying God was more important to them than anything else.  Not even the flames of a furnace that was designed to “smelt” human beings would deter them from their commitment to their God.  What do Shadrach, Meshack, and Abed-nego have to say to us today?

I received a telephone call at home the other night from a man I’ve known since the early 1970s.  It’s been a little over 15 years since I’ve seen him, but time melted away as we reminisced.

Thirty-five years ago Billy and his family moved back from western South Dakota to live near his folks.  It was Billy’s intention to set up a grade B dairy on his dad’s farm.  Somehow he and his wife and three kids wound up in the Sunday morning service in our little building on the edge of town.  That was in February of 1974.  That week I went to Billy’s house to see him, but he wasn’t there.  As I talked with his wife and children, I discovered that she was a believer.  I promised to return when her husband was home.

I think it was the next week (I can’t be sure, after all, it’s been over 30 years!) that I returned.  Billy was home, and as we sat at the kitchen table it was plain that he’d never trusted in Jesus alone for salvation.  As I explained the Truth to him, the Holy Spirit moved in his heart, and he invited the Lord Jesus into his life.  Subsequently both his dad and his mom and a married sister all gave their hearts to Jesus.  I stood by his parents’ graves two weeks ago.  His sister’s children are walking with Jesus. 

“February 20, 1974,” he said the other night on the telephone.  I baptized Billy.  The dairy thing didn’t work out.  In a short time, later that year in fact, he moved his family back to the western part of the state.  They became active in a local church.  The kids grew up and left home.  And, from time to time, our paths crossed.  The fellowship was always great.

The last time I saw Billy was 15 years ago.  From that time to the other night, I don’t think we even talked via telephone.  He confessed that he’s never purchased a computer, so he doesn’t do email; and he only has a cell phone because his kids insisted.  He’s 73 now, long retired from the U. S. Postal Service.  But, he still loves Jesus, and is still involved in His work.

It was so good to speak with him once again.  So good!

Why am I telling you this?  I want you to think of one person whose life has blessed you in the past – maybe a long time in the past.  I want you to make contact with that person yet this week to tell that person how much you love and appreciate him or her.  I want you to do that because life is too short not to.  And, I want you to do that for what it will do for the person you call or write.

Did you miss me last week?  On Wednesday, when there was no Midweek Message?  On Sunday?  Please say yes!

Seriously, I missed you.  Each of you. 

Luana and I attended the Berean National Convention in Kearney last week, and then Sunday we were in the Gregory Berean Church in Gregory, SD.  That’s where we began pastoral ministry 37 years ago, planting a church with just 1 and ½ families.  There’re been more than a few of our friends who are now in Glory, but it was great to renew old relationships and create some new ones.  It was “Roundup Sunday,” and about 15 rode their horses to church.  Cowboy poet R.P. Smith from Broken Bow delivered more than a few of his excellent poems, and I had the privilege of preaching.  It was sort of a dubious honor, coming as it did after that spell-binding rendering of verse, but we made the best of it.  The fellowship meal afterwards was superb.

I wish you all could have joined us in Gregory, and I really wish you all could have attended the Convention.  Dr. Tony Beckett did an excellent job of challenging us from Ephesians 3 and 4 on the subject of “Some Assembly Required.”  One of the phrases he used more than once was “Don’t just grow old in Christ – grow to be more like Christ.” 

What a challenge that is, right?  What a challenge to grow to be more and more like Jesus as the years pass.  I saw that in Gregory, because the folks we began ministry with almost 4 decades ago are now retirement age.  They’ve grown old, or, at least older, in Christ to be sure.  But, it was obvious that many of them have also grown to be more like Jesus.  I hope it was evident to them that this is what has happened with me.

Being with those folks was a reminder of how quickly this life passes.  Being with Dr. Beckett and others at Kearney was a reminder that yes, no matter what stage of life we’re in, some assembly is still required.

So, let’s keep on growing up in Jesus as we grow older, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature person, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

It’s good to be home.  See you Sunday!

Good THURSDAY afternoon.  Yes, this is late.  I have a lot of reasons for this, the best one being that I had a mountain of stuff to dig through after being out of the state for 2 weeks.  This will have to suffice.

Well, actually, the reason is that I just felt uninspired to write.  Until last evening.

Last evening I went home from the church building, donned my work-out gear, and mounted my bicycle for the daily constitutional down NW 105^th to West Fletcher and back.  Near the old Malcolm High School I spied a young friend, waved at him, and continued on.  A glance in the mirror on the handlebar revealed that he was now following me on his own two-wheeler.  I figured I’d stop at the intersection of Malcolm Road and NW 105^th to chat with him a bit.  I looked over my shoulder to see if he were still coming, looked back to the front (the direction I was heading), saw a car approaching from the direction of the church, and decided to put on the brakes.

I don’t know why I grabbed the right lever as hard as I did.  Maybe it was the car that hove into sight, though I had plenty of time to stop.  Maybe it was because I was glancing over my shoulder and became a bit disoriented about which hand was which.  But whatever the reason, the front tire locked up tighter than a rusted lug nut and I went right over the handlebars.

The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion.  No, I didn’t see my life pass before my eyes.  I saw the pavement slowly rise to meet my 61 year old body, and as it did I thought to myself, also in slow motion, “This is going to hurt.”

I must thank my 87 year old mother for the ability to fall and rise again without breaking any thing.  She’s done this for years, and I’m glad for her genes.  I sat in the middle of the road, my left shoulder and elbow aching.  My head also ached, but not from contacting another more solid surface.  That ache was from the severe jolt of the rest of my body hitting the road.

Feeling more than a little foolish, I got up, assured my young friend that I was ok, and allowed him to straighten my handlebars.  Then, after a brief visit and an assurance to him that I would be all right, I went on down the road to finish my ride.

Isn’t that supposed to be what we do when we fall?  Aren’t we supposed to get up and go on?  That seems to be the whole tenor of Scripture, doesn’t it?  Abraham fell hard in the matter of Hagar, but he got up and went on as the friend of God.  David fell even harder over another man’s wife, but he got up again to lead a nation in worship of his God.  Peter collapsed big time, first in the waters of Galilee, and then in a priest’s courtyard.  But we all know him as a pillar of the early church, and an apostolic writer who encourages us today.  John Mark, the nephew of Paul’s friend Barnabas, landed hard when he went AWOL on that first missionary trip; but he dusted himself off to become useful later on to the man he’d so severely let down.  

Have you fallen down since I last visited with you via this Message business?  Hard?  Bruised a bit, maybe?  Get up.  Confess your failure to the One who the psalmist says forgives our transgressions (65:3), and go on.  Don’t let a tumble keep you down.

As we shall see Sunday, one of the reasons God’s people gather to worship Him together is the fact that he forgives their sins.  Read Psalm 65 in preparation for our time together this Sunday. 

Believe it or not, in spite of my tumble, it is really good to be home.

I hoisted a pint in Midlothian, Texas earlier this week.  Actually, I consumed about 9 of them.  And, it wasn’t in a local pub either.  It was at my mother’s.

We arrived at my mom’s place on Monday evening after a leisurely drive from Baxter Springs, Kansas and its Cafe On The Route across Oklahoma and through Plano on U.S. 69 and 75.  The maze-like run through the Big D was accomplished with only a modicum of stress.  And the heat never abated.

After a great reunion with Mom and my oldest sister Mary and a good night’s rest, I went out in the morning sauna to assess the job I’d come to do.  The  previous owners of my folks’ place had enclosed a double attached garage to create more living space.  Over time, the vertical masonite siding had rotted along the cement, and there was the possibility that dry-rot had also infected the bottom plate of that wall.

In addition, there was an external “people door” that was no longer used, and was destined for removal.

I tore off a bit of the siding, actually the bottom third all the way across the 16 foot length.  There was only about 3 feet of damaged plate, and the studs were all sound.   But, because I’d slept in a bit, the sun was already beginning to have a direct shot at the reconstruction site, and I am a wimp, I tidied up a little and escaped into the cool interior.

The next day is when I hit the bottle.  I worked out there for only 3 or 4 hours, tearing the rest of the siding off, tearing off the insulation board beneath, and beginning preparations for shimming, sheathing, and residing.  It wasn’t much more than 90 degrees (listen to me talk) when I quit, but I was very nearly dehydrated and definitely exhausted. 

And this was in spite of the 4 and 1/4 quarts I managed to guzzle as I wiped the excessive sweat from my head and neck.  144 ounces of liquid refreshment, and I craved more.  A regular lush, I am.   

Care to join me for a pint?  You can have it in either green, red, or orange.  And, if you don’t like Gatorade, you can always drink water.