I've got shocking news that no one will ever have thought of
before, insight that no one has ever had before.
Are you ready? Brand new life is hard, maybe
not shocking life. It's it's a struggle.
It's, it is a genuine struggle and there's a very real sense
and that's just what we should expect.
But there was AII saw, saw something on just again, several
moments of Full disclosure here this morning.
Saw something, a video on social media the other day that I
didn't bother to Fact Check because I agreed with it.
And you know, why bother fact checking something If you, if
you agree with it, I'm going to share it with you.
I it needs to be fact checked, but I think that intuitively it
makes sense. And it was a guy talking about
children and the differences between raising children now and
like 30-40, fifty years ago. And the example he was using was
playgrounds. Now, I grew up on a playground,
a playground at my elementary school, Bidwell Elementary
School, had the 12 foot tall aluminum steel slide, right, no
hand rails and it went down to pavement and and so, you know,
you could die on that thing. I don't, as far as I know, no
one ever did. We also had the monkey bars that
were way up high that you could climb on top of.
Also over pavement. The part that wasn't over
pavement were the swings. We had the best swings, great
big tall swings. And when I was there, we still
had the board seats rather than the foldy seats because you
could jump out of those board seats.
We weren't jumping on the pavement.
We were jumping onto gravel and big pieces of gravel, not wood
chips, not little, you know, ground up bits of rubber tires,
but gravel, except when it was rainy and then it was mud.
And that's, you know, people got hurt.
I, I miraculously, I never got a serious injury on that
playground. I don't know how I didn't get a
serious injury on that playground, but I didn't, I did
get some injuries doing other things growing up.
Then he showed that and then he showed a picture of a modern
playground where where nothing is taller than this.
And, and right now at that point, that's, you know, fact
checking required. We, we have witnessed those
kinds of things ourselves, if if not in person, then through
pictures. But this is the part that that
intuitively makes sense to me. But I think it warrants fact
checking, which I haven't done yet, which is the argument he
was making was that children need an element of risk and
danger in their lives to develop properly.
That if we insulate children from all risk and all danger,
we're not protecting them. We're doing them a disservice
because children need to learn how to evaluate and look at a
situation and see whether it's dangerous and then how to
navigate through a dangerous situation.
And then if they get hurt and, and when they get hurt, to learn
how to work through and navigate through the pain and the
suffering that comes from the injury.
And that all of those things are good and important parts of
growing up and maturing. And when we don't allow children
to experience those things, we're not, we're not helping
them. We're depriving them of
something that warrants some fact checking.
But to me, it intuitively makes sense because it seems like our
world was not designed to be safe.
The world that God has placed us in.
There is an element of danger there, not a maybe that maybe
it's a guy thing, maybe maybe it's just a me thing.
But my wife Amy and I have a very different attitudes about
these sorts of things. And it showed up with how we
raised, particularly our son. My our son James was in the ER
more times in the first two years of his life than I was in
the 1st 25 years of my life, maybe 35 years of my life.
First trip to the ER, he jumped over Amy who was sitting on the
floor and did a face plant on our stone hearth and and split
his lip wide open. I believe he got some stitches
on that one. The second trip to the ER, and
these are only injuries he had, you know, ear infections that
sent him to the ER as well. But we're just doing injuries
was another jumping incident. Amy was, and I saw this one
happen. I wasn't there for the first
one. I saw this one happen.
Amy was sitting on the bed. It was bedtime doing the bedtime
routine and James was at the foot of the bed and he launched
himself over Amy and smashed his face into the wooden headboard
and his tooth literally flew out of his mouth.
I saw it pop out and go across the room.
Another trip to the ER. Amy was determined that James
have no more trips to the ER. She didn't want him to jump from
anything anytime. And then a couple years ago, we
were going back and looking at old movies and we were, in this
particular movie, we were in our family room.
I was holding the camera. Amy was on the floor, Grace and
James were on the floor playing. Amy had her back to the sofa
and, and, and, and then there would be periodically where
Amy's playing with Grace on the floor here.
And I would pan the camera over and James was climbing up onto
the couch and launching himself off behind Amy's back.
And she was unaware of what was going on until she saw the
video. Like 15 years later and we had a
conversation then that that was, you know, interesting different
attitudes we had towards safety. I, I'm not saying 11 is right
and one is wrong. What I'm saying is, is that our
life is filled with struggle. Our life is filled with pain and
and the goal and our response to that I believe, should not be to
insulate ourselves and our kids and whoever else from every
experience of pain as much as possible, but rather to teach
patients perseverance and accommodation through pain and
through suffering. Jacob and Rachel and Leah went
through a long period of suffering.
Long period now, Jacob had every reason to believe that his life
was going to be charmed and blessed and free from any
meaningful pain and suffering. God told his mother while Jacob
was still in the womb that he, Jacob, the younger brother, his
other brother, they were twins, but he saw was going to be born
1st, that the younger brother was going to rule.
The older brother, the younger brother would be heir to the
promise that God made, the covenant and promise God made to
Abraham, that it was the younger brother whose descendants would
fill the land and occupy the land and own the land.
It's the younger brother who would be the leader, the younger
brother through whom all nations of the world would be blessed.
And with that kind of promise from God of that that rolling
God's plan, it would not have been surprising for Jacob to
think, hey, my life is set. My life is made.
God has made his promises. Everything is going to be great
for me. And it wasn't.
It wasn't through his own frailty and weakness, he so
alienated his father and his brother that he had to flee for
his life. He ended up at his mom's
brother's home in a distant land, and he spent 20 years
there, being repeatedly, constantly lied to and cheated
by his father-in-law. He worked for his father-in-law.
He worked seven years to marry Rachel, his father in law's
youngest daughter. But his father-in-law lied to
him and sent in his oldest daughter to be married instead
and required Jacob to work another seven years in exchange
for marrying his younger daughter.
He worked for Laban for a total of 20 years.
And during that time, Laban kept cheating him out of his wages.
He kept changing the rules. The Jacob was in charge of the
flocks. And it would be one, one season.
It will be well, Jacob, any, any flock, any, any lambs or, or, or
goats born that are speckled, those are yours.
And I'll keep the others. And, and too many would be born
speckled. So Laban would change the rules.
No, no, no, it's not the speckled ones, It's the striped
ones. No, no, it's not the striped
ones. It's the plain ones.
And he kept changing the rules to try to cheat Jacob over and
over and over and over and over again.
Rachel and Leah shared in this suffering.
Their father literally sold them for 14 years of Labor from Jacob
and then squandered the work that Jacob did.
So he had nothing left to leave them as an inheritance in any
meaningful way. Rachel and Leah struggled in
their relationship with each other.
Rachel in particular being barren for so many years, unable
to have children and doing everything she could to make
that happen and not being successful.
Leah knowing that even though she had lots of kids, that it
was her younger sister that her husband really loved and really
wanted to marry and never wanted to marry her anyway. 20 years of
this, a long struggle and God. God could have bypassed all of
that. God could have avoided all.
God didn't protect them. God made sure that that Jacob
didn't get cheated even though Laban was trying to cheat him.
That however, Laban changed the rules.
God made the baby sheep and goats be born in a way that
would benefit Jacob. But but the lies, the deception,
the dishonesty, the, the, the, the, the, the tension between
them was very real. The suffering, the pain, the
heartache, all of this very real to the point when they finally
did leave, they snuck off. Jacob invited his wives to meet
him out in the fields where all the flocks were and shared with
them that it was time to leave. And they packed up and left
there and never went back and told Laban.
Laban chased him down later and confronted them.
We might get to that another day.
But God didn't keep them from experiencing the suffering.
He didn't keep them experience from experiencing the heartache
and the pain. He didn't because that's part of
the life that we are living. The long struggle of faith
requires patience, perseverance through pain, not insulation
from pain. Jesus said very He was.
Jesus was not out there recruiting recruiters.
They, they, you know, whether it's college or work or
whatever, they'll tell you how wonderful everything is.
It's like, you know, time shares at a condo.
Oh, it'll all be perfect and it'll all be wonderful.
And no, it's not James. When he was being recruited for,
for the military, they told him a whole bunch of stuff just
wasn't true, just wasn't true to get him to sign up.
That's how recruiters work. Jesus does not work that way.
Jesus told folks up front in this world, if you're my
follower in this world, you will have trouble.
You will have trouble. Take heart, he said.
I've overcome the world, He said.
If you want to be my follower, if you want to be my disciple,
you need to deny yourself and take up your cross daily and
follow me. He said.
Animals have nests and dens and Burrows to sleep in.
But me, the Son of God, the Messiah, I'm homeless.
I sleep on the ground outside. If you want to follow me, there
will be suffering, there will be pain.
That just comes with the territory.
Part of that is when we decide to follow Jesus, when we get
baptized, when we give our life to Jesus.
We are picking sides in a cosmic battle and we now have an enemy
because Jesus has an enemy. The other part of it is, is that
the work God has given us to do is hard work.
Loving people, including our enemies, is hard work.
Laying down our lives so that others have enough.
Making sacrifices, financial and material sacrifices, so that
people that have less can have enough.
This is hard work, giving up power and position and privilege
in order to elevate those who have less.
This is hard work. It requires suffering, it
requires sacrifice, and it requires perseverance through
the pain, not an insulation from pain.
Paul compared this life of faith to training for a contest, races
and and fights, boxing matches, wrestling matches, and how when
you're, when you're preparing for that, when you're preparing
for the contest, you go into training, you make sacrifices,
you suffer to be prepared to compete in the hopes of winning
a prize, a crown, a medal in today's Olympics, a trophy in
school. Well, we're in the Olympics.
Full disclosure, second part of Full disclosure this morning, I
have not watched a single minute of the Olympics.
Not at all. I used to watch the I used to
just love the Winter Olympics. And for whatever reason, this
year, I haven't been interested. That's not a statement about the
value of the Olympics. It's a really cool thing.
And, and I have been able to read and learn some of the
stories, which is I think one of the funnest things about the
Olympics anyway, is the stories behind the competitors, the
backstories. And I've heard a few really cool
ones about this patient's perseverance through pain.
I mean, first of all, anyone who for every triple Luts or
whatever they're doing on that ice skating rink, every amazing
flip and maneuver and a half pipe on the snowboard, everyone
that's landed beautifully, gracefully and successfully.
There's been 150 or 200 or 1000 that have been crash and burn,
pain, bruises, broken bones, twists, sprains, Ouch, hurts,
suffering for every single one. That's been good.
But then there's the other kinds of sufferings.
Do you hear? There was, I, I think this guy
is from England and he was a skeleton is what he competes in
which you have to be a little bit crazy to do that anyway.
And, and, but he didn't start out and, and that level guy, he
started out in Taekwondo. That was his preferred area of
competing until he broke his back.
He broke his back, ended his Taekwondo career, picked
something much safer, I guess skeleton, and he broke his back
again. And now competing in the
Olympics, he has had to recover from 2 separate breaks in his
back. There's a German ski jumper.
I kid you not, I'm not sure if you've heard of this or not.
A German ski jumper. Afraid of heights.
So, so afraid of heights that there have been times in his
competition on the really high ones, he's gotten up there and
he hasn't been able to do it. And he, he, he's gotten
counselling and therapy and psychological help to be able to
push through that fear and focus on what he's doing.
But it's amazing level of perseverance.
I think most folks that afraid of heights would say maybe
swimming is my sport. Golf.
The men's US men's hockey team had two goals invalidated and
called back early on. Goals mean a lot.
I'm not a hockey person. I don't understand at all, but I
know how many goals you scores is important, almost as whether
you win or lose. And they had to call back and
they've pushed through and they've persevered.
There's another person, I believe she's a cross country
skier. And again, I don't know why.
I don't know how anyone could enjoy cross country skiing.
I can understand the scale. There's at least an adrenaline
rush with the skeleton thing. Cross country skiing to me is
punishment. Like if I wanted to punish
someone I would say you need to go ski on flat land or uphill.
People do it for fun. Go figure.
There's one woman, I don't remember which country she was
from, and I had a 10K that she did at the Olympics, medal then
I believe, and the week before she had taken a bad fall and had
bruised several ribs. I fell down the steps a few
weeks ago and I didn't bruise any ribs and I was in my easy
chair for three days. She fell, bruised a bunch of
ribs, and did a Ken K on her skis the next week at the
Olympics. Pushing through, persevering
through pain and through suffering.
Maybe the most heartbreaking story from at least the American
side this year is what, Ilya Melanin, I think I'm getting his
name right, Figure skater who had won 14 competitions in a
row, I understand, and was the long favorite to win the gold
and then fell and fell again and stumbled and his long
performance, long program. Now he's got to decide how he's
going to respond to that with the perseverance and the
patience and the pushing through and the continuing.
Maybe a very different experience than he's had before
losing in that way. But there he is.
It's part of competing. It's part of competing.
But all those folks are competing for is a little bit of
glory, a medal and maybe some money.
And within 10 years, 25 years, almost every single one of them
will be forgotten. I don't remember who won most of
the Olympics 25 years ago. Certainly within 50 years most
will be forgotten, if not all. Paul says we are competing for a
very different prize, the high calling of Christ Jesus, of life
with him forever, of being part of his mission and his ministry
in the world. This is what we are training
for, and this is what we are persevering for.
For that calling, for that relationship, for that
connection. My favorite story of
perseverance doesn't come from the Olympics.
We're one week out from what in my opinion, is the most boring
Super Bowl in history. I haven't watched all of them,
so I could be wrong, but it was a pretty boring Super Bowl.
And football story wasn't a Super Bowl story.
College football story. Do you remember Rudy Rudiger?
Remember that name? Yeah.
I love that movie and I know I've done this twice.
No one's gotten this joke yet. Rudy.
In the movie, Rudy was played by Sam Wise Gangi, which was very
interesting. I see.
I knew you would get No one else has gotten that joke.
It's funny. Trust us.
We're it's funny. Rudy was an undersized, under
talented kid from Indiana that was desperate to play football
for Notre Dame and was determined.
And everyone told him he was crazy.
Everyone told him he was nuts. Everyone told him he didn't have
a chance. And normally you could ignore
naysayers when you've got a dream.
But when the naysayers are the coaches, who will be the ones
that decide whether you get on the team and they're telling you
you don't have a chance, normally you should ignore that
or you shouldn't ignore that. But Rudy did ignore it.
He also had academic problems. He wasn't smart enough, didn't
have good enough grades to get into Notre Dame as a student.
But he worked and he persevered, and he hired a tutor to help him
with his schoolwork. And he trained and he practiced.
And he never did make the starting team, but he made the
practice team, and he spent four years getting the snot beat out
of him by the starters day in and day out on that practice
field so that other people could get glory In the final game of
his final season. He got to go on the field, made
a tackle, was a wonderful moment in his life.
His dreams come true. His dreams come true never could
have come true without the willingness and the patience to
persevere through pain. And the goal we are striving
for, the reasons we persevere as followers to Jesus, are so much
more important, so much more significant than trophies and
glory and money. It's for the love of God and the
love of neighbor and the Kingdom of God in this world.
That's what we're asked to persevere through.
Now here's the fact is we, we can't attain those things on our
own. We can't win these competitions
on our own. We, we have too many weaknesses
and frailties. The good news is, is that with
all of our weaknesses and all of our frailties, God accommodates
them. We're maybe here I hear a lot
about these days about accommodation and it's talked
about more than it used to be. And that's a very good thing.
And we, we accommodate people with physical limitations.
The new sidewalks being put in, I believe all have ramps on
them, right? So that if you can't walk up a
step, you can, your wheelchair can go up steps.
New buildings being built, if they're more than one floor,
need chair lifts or elevators to accommodate people that can't
walk up steps. The whole program of Ieps in
school, though, and implementation seldom seems to
be perfect, at least expresses in a very meaningful way the
real desire to accommodate students who need to learn in
different ways. Other accommodations for other
kinds of things, whether physical challenges or mental
challenges, emotional challenges.
We, we are increasingly as a culture willing and able to
accommodate, or at least recognize the need to
accommodate. Nah, we've got a long way to go,
but it's there. God was doing this long before
any human beings ever thought of it.
God accommodated Rachel, God accommodated Jacob, God
accommodated Leah. Jacob.
When, when, when Laban was cheating him, when he kept
changing the rules and whether he's going to get the speckled
sheep or the street sheep or, or whatever sheep he was going to
get for his payment, whatever was born, Laban would change it
to make the other. But, but Jacob had a strategy
and his plan. So there was a widely held
belief in those days that whatever a mother was looking at
when she was impregnated affected the looks of the child,
the baby. And so so yeah, I know it's,
it's kind of nuts, but that's what folks believed.
And, and it had some pretty sinister takes on it because
when a human baby was born with dramatic physical differences
was often assumed that the mother had done something wrong.
So, so it's funny, but it's also sinister when it's sheep.
It's funny. We can laugh at the sheep.
Is it where sheep and goats? So Jacob's strategy, he got
sticks. He knew where that the that the
sheep and the goats did their breeding near where they did
their drinking, their water. And he got sticks and he made
them striped and he made them polka dotted and he put them up.
So all of those ewes, all of those goats that were getting
bred at that point, we're looking at striped and spotted
or speckled things. That was Jacob's plan.
We know that's nuts. It's ridiculous.
It doesn't work that way. We understand genetics much
better than Jacob did. Much better.
God knew the Jacob strategy was not meaningfully productive, but
God blessed him anyway. He didn't scold Jacob for not
knowing what he didn't know. When Rachel got the Mandrake
roots to try to increase her fertility so she could have a
baby, God didn't scold Rachel for not knowing what she didn't
know, for picking a different strategy than just just praying.
God bless them. God accommodated their
frailties. God accommodated their
weaknesses. God accommodated their the the
flaws and brokenness broken. This is in their life.
Jacob himself was a liar and a cheat and a manipulator of
people at times. God looks at looked at them and
looks at us and our brokenness and in our frailties and in our
weaknesses. And God says, you know what?
I can, I can work with that. I can work with that.
Jacob's wasting time making striped and speckled sticks, but
I'm not going to punish him for that.
I'm going to bless him. And he did bless him with the
livestock that he needed, the wealth that he needed that would
move the mission forward that God had planned for him.
And this is what God invites us to as well, to be patient with
our own frailties and our own weaknesses, and to be willing to
accommodate frailties and weaknesses and others around us
too, and allow them to be who they are, warts and all, flaws
and all. And that's, that's part of the
work sometimes that's part of the sacrifice and part of the
suffering. It's finding ways to accommodate
folks that need to be accommodated.
It's, it's it. There's always an element of
self-interest in that though, because all of us at some point
always are going to need accommodation.
If only when we stand before Jesus at the final judgment,
we're going to need accommodation.
We're going to need that. So it's good to practice it now
too. But this is this is the life
that we have and the life that we're called to one of human
struggle as we live out God's divine purpose for us of sharing
his love and practical and tangible and meaningful ways
with people in this community around us.
And it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be simple.
There's going to be struggle, there's going to be pain,
there's going to be suffering along the way.
Thank God that our God accommodates our weaknesses and
frailties and teaches us how to do the same for each other.
And thank God that God's purposes and power transcend and
redeem all of our brokenness, all of our weaknesses, and all
of the pain and suffering that comes our way.
In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.