Beebe&nbsp;&#8203;<br />&#8203;Church of Christ
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Leadership
    • Beliefs
  • Resources
    • Sermons
    • Articles
  • Youth
  • Belize
  • Relationships Matter

For those who mourn at Christmas

12/20/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2:23–25)
 
Ministry has taught me that the season of Christmas is, for many in my pews, a season of great sadness. The familiar forms greet us—lights, trees, songs, gifts, church services—but loved ones who made these times so special do not. We remember the good and our hearts are warmed, but we cannot help but also remember our loss.
 
Those who mourn may sense an unspoken pressure to move on and enjoy the holidays. But I think that the advice given to those who mourn to “just try to enjoy this time of year” is like asking someone with a broken leg to walk normally as if they weren’t in pain. In the little I’ve learned about love and loss it seems to me that it is better to remember and grieve than to forget and pretend. We don’t need cheap advice to “move on” and “just try to enjoy” another Christmas season. We cannot forget those we love. We will always walk with this limp. 
 
What we yearn for and need is real hope. So, a more honest and helpful question as we remember our loss might be, Where can we find true comfort? And, Where can we find real hope?
 
I find an answer in the preface to the great exodus story (not a typical “Christmas story”, I know). The Israelites are slaves in Egypt where a new king who does not know Joseph sits on the throne. Early in this book one wonders, What do these Israelites know about God? If you think about it, all they have is a Bible that consists of a single book: Genesis. Most likely they don’t have all fifty chapters that our Genesis comprises. Instead, they likely only have an odd assortment of rumored scraps of partial legends about a strange god: a god looking at the stars with Abraham, this same god and Isaac, this deity wrestling with Jacob, etc. What could they have possibly known about God? Honestly, probably not much. So, it is interesting that when they cry out in pain, the text simply says, “they cry out”. It doesn’t even say “they cried out to God.” Perhaps God is last thing on their minds.
 
Nevertheless, God hears their cries. That means that God hears deep within his own heart what is in his children’s hearts. He remembers, and his remembering means that God knows, and that God will act. As we know, the rest is history: God delivers his people with a mighty hand. 
 
But, I want to back up and ask, What causes God to remember in the first place? It isn’t the people’s memory. After all, if this is hundreds of years later after Joseph and everything we read about in Genesis then who is left who could have remembered God’s promises? Who still has the signed contracts filed away so as to hold God accountable to what he said to the patriarchs? The answer, of course, is no one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their immediate families have long been gone.
 
But it doesn’t matter, because what causes God to remember and to act is not the people’s memory of God’s covenant, it is God’s own memory of God’s covenant. God doesn’t need reminded, coaxed, guilted, or pressured by any outside force. He remembers because he does not forget. He is faithful to his own promises. He is faithful to the people he loves. 

For us, what this means in the first place is that you are not the only one who remembers your loss. God remembers, as he always does. He remembers his people—those who are living and those who have passed on. He remembers the grief of his children. He hears their pain, he remembers, he knows, he acts. This was true in a great instance in the exodus, but it is also true in all the small instances of our lives.
 
And it means, in the second place that God does not and will not forget the promises he made in Christ to you or to your loved ones. Years after the exodus, God’s great memory proved true again, when early on a Sunday, even when the disciples were scattered and all had forgotten Jesus’s words about the resurrection, God did not forget. God heard his Son’s cries on the cross and, even as he slept in the grave on Saturday, God remembered.  
 
Perhaps your loss happened just earlier this year, or perhaps it was years ago, or decades ago in your childhood. Regardless of when it occurred, it may be that you carry that loss on the front of your mind and right on the top of your heart. It may also be that this Christmas season no one will seem to take notice, and no one will ask or remember. But the good news is God does. We can find comfort and hope in the great memory of God. Rest assured that if you remember a loss, then God remembers it, too. And if you know the gospel and God's promises in Christ, God remembers them, too. 

Years from now when I am forgotten, and no one is left who remembers my name or the names of any of the people I have loved—my family, my church, my friends—there may be no one left to remind God of his promises in Christ to us, no one left to hold God accountable to his promise to raise us from our sleep, to wipe away our tears, and to be with us as our God forever. Be that as it may, it is all right. Because Holy Scripture assures us God does not forget. The exodus and the empty tomb are evidence to us that even if all others forget, God will remember. God will not forget. 
0 Comments

Playing Pretend

9/4/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
written by Annesly Pruitt

​In his book The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis writes that “All mortals tend to turn into the
thing they are pretending to be.” Think back to when you or a child you knew played pretend. I
always played teacher. Is it any surprise I eventually became one? I would guess you’ve seen
this phenomenon, too. We can usually tell from a young age what children may become based
on who they pretend to be. We may think of pretending as something we grow out of, but the
truth is, pretending often shapes our futures in powerful ways.

Have you ever pretended to be something else, like patient? Let’s imagine that you’re at work,
dealing with a difficult person, and you are frustrated beyond measure but know you must keep
face. You pretend to be patient. You act in a way that is in contrast to how you feel.

I think becoming like Jesus often feels a lot like we’re faking it. We feel so broken on the inside,
but we try really hard to pretend like we’re good. I don’t think that contrast is all that bad. In
fact, I think it’s the first step to transformation.

Picture a woman who wears a mask that makes her appear more beautiful than she actually is.
After years of wear, she finally takes it off to discover that her face grew to fit into it. She has
now become what she pretended to be — beautiful. She eventually became who she pretended
to be. Paul gives us other images of this same phenomena when he tells us to “clothe yourselves
with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14), and “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:24). Do you
think of your spiritual life like clothes? Are they something that you have to dress yourself up in
everyday? Paul understands that the Christian life isn’t something we just wake up with; it takes
some putting on.

Do you remember when you were a new Christian? Personally, I felt like I had to be baptized
again every day. I still felt deeply broken. I still feel deeply broken. But can any of us who have
been in Christ for many years look back and see no change? Of course not. The change is slow,
but it is real. Maybe pretending isn’t all that bad. Maybe pretending frees us up to believe that
who we are today is not who we will always be.

​To look like Christ, we may need to pretend for a while. But over time, if we wear masks of
goodness, masks that look like Christ, the Spirit will come along in a mysterious way and
transform us to fit those masks. Becoming like Christ does not happen in a moment. It is a
practice. It is putting on Christ’s clothes and discarding our old ones. We live with the hope that
who we are now is not who we really are. We are people who will someday grow to fit Christ’s
robes.
0 Comments

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

6/19/2021

0 Comments

 
       The one we worship as God, in prayer and praise, is also the one we call “our Father.” This God is not unapproachable or unknowable, and our worship of him is not coolly transactional or sweaty with fear. We worship our Father who loves us as his children, and no one shows us what this looks like more than the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus Christ.
 
The Father we worship is close to us.
       The Son says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8). Jesus reminds us that the God we know knows us, he knows our lives, and what we’re going through. He says, “Your father who sees in secret” (Matt. 6:4, 6) to remind us that even when we are alone, we are never without out Father. At times, we might imagine that God has bigger problems to worry about than our little ones. But in reality, our Father knows us and he cares.
 
The Father we worship cares for us.
       The Son says, “Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:9–11) Our Father knows what we need (Matt. 6:32) and he knows how to care for us. If human fathers have the good sense to watch over a child, do we not think God knows how to take care of us?
 
The Father we worship calls us to grow into the full stature of his Son.
       The Son says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44–45). This Father is close to his children and cares for them, but not to pamper them or to get in the way of their growth. He is not content with a household of infantile children or sophomoric adolescents. He wants our good which demands his bringing us up to look like himself, that is, to look like his Son, Jesus Christ. As he says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

0 Comments

Between Advents

12/26/2020

1 Comment

 
“And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’” (Acts 1:10–11)
 
            The first few days after Christmas I find myself staring into the aftermath of what just happened in much the same way that the disciples must have stared into heaven after the ascension: the trash can is overflowing (again), the toy my daughter got is too loud (thanks mom), and the tree is turning brown.  My stomach is full, football is on, and I am too lazy to get up from the couch.
 
            Too often the church exists in this sort of stupor, also.  Jesus has come, and we have gorged ourselves on the birthday cake.  We are fat with our own salvation while the shelves in the pantry stay bare, the widower’s phone does not ring, and our neighbors need Christ.  But, those are either someone else’s jobs, or they will have to wait until tomorrow: we’ve been immobilized by the blessings of Christ’s coming.
 
            Christmas was only God’s first full advent into this world, but it won’t be his last.  As Christians, we live between two advents, not just after one.  Because of the first coming of Christ, we live ready for his second.  And that means that we must be “busy about the Father’s business.”  The men in Acts warn us also: this Jesus will come again.
 
            Living in the wake of Christmas ought to mean for us busy, urgent, loving service to our church and to our world, and if we are complacent then it means we have misunderstood Christmas.  Love has come, yes, but not for us only.  Love has come, but there are many around us who live their lives unaware of what this truly means, and you and I have only until Love’s return to tell them.  Because Christ has come, today is the day of salvation, and if you are already saved, then today is the day you are called to take salvation to another.  Today, let us be up and doing, busy, serving, loving one another until he comes. 
1 Comment

An Unsettling God, An Unsettling Gospel

6/13/2020

0 Comments

 
“A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone's skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?”
-Oscar Romero
 
            When was the last time you felt unsettled by God or the gospel you believe?  As I think about how I, personally, would answer that question, I find myself unsettled but by something else.  I find myself unsettled by how seldom my God and my faith unsettle me. 
 
            When I open the Word, I find story after story of a God and a message from God that unsettle.  The old couple Abram and Sarai are told they were going to have a baby, and then, some years later, Abraham is called to kill this baby.  God shows up to Moses in a burning bush that doesn’t burn up, and then calls him to do the impossible in Egypt.  Ezekiel was called to preach to dried out bones, Hosea to marry a whore.  Then, the Son of God comes, and over and over and over again, he unsettles. 
           
            But, here am I: all so often very settled.  And that unsettles me.  My assumption is something like that God’s unsettling happened “back then,” about 2000 years ago, and that those waves have settled by now.  We, the 21st century American church, have things figured out so much so that our God and our gospel hardly need to unsettle anymore.  
 
            But, is it really the case that the Lord of all the universe is no bull in the china shop of my life?  Is it really the case that the eternal Word of God enters my heart just to sit down quietly, have tea, and read a book, but not to turn over any tables?  Is it really true that there really isn’t all that much in me that needs unsettled, challenged, and transformed?
 
            Maybe the problem is that I am not really listening.  Maybe I am not in the word enough, and not enough in the word in the right way.  Maybe I am not really listening to my neighbors, or listening to the teachings of Christ deeply enough, when he calls me to forgive everyone I know 490 times, turn the other cheek, give the shirt off my back, show hospitality to strangers, feed the hungry, wash others’ feet, preach to outcasts, and take up my cross.  Maybe the same unsettling God and gospel of the Bible are at hand in my world too, if I only sit still long enough to listen.
0 Comments

New Years and Old Fears

12/27/2019

2 Comments

 
            A new year and a new decade arrive on our doorsteps Wednesday.  Can you believe it’s going to be 2020?  Most of the questions we get asked this time of the year have to do with our hopes and our plans: What are your goals? and What are you looking forward to?  But I’d like to offer a different question: What are your fears going into this new year?  
 
            There are plenty of things to fear on the threshold of a new year.  We have fears about a child now a teenager, an old health problem flaring up, a savings account dwindling, or a marriage that is on the rocks.  A new year reminds some of us of our mortality, that there are more new years and new decades behind us than in front of us.  Still others of us recall loved ones whose hands we won’t be holding this New Year’s Eve.  Far from being a time of excitement and hope, a new year may be a terrible reminder of everything that has or might go wrong.  Does the gospel have a word to offer us who are confronted now by so many fears? 
 
            When God raised Jesus from the dead he opened up a new and good future to us.  In the resurrection we have proof that God is still at work in the world and that he will see all things through to his desired end for them.  This means a few things.  One, it means that the hardships of this life and the things we fear will not have the last word in our lives or in our world—God will.  And it also means that God is still at work in the world now, opening up new and good endings for all his creatures, including each of us.
 
            To be sure, there are no guarantees that hardships or even death won’t meet us in the year to come.  The resurrection does not promise us that life will be a bed of roses.  Instead, the gospel proclaims to us that whatever difficult or truly terrible thing might come our way, it will not be the final word for us.  In the end, God will win, and he will see to it that his purposes come to pass.  The gospel also means that in a new year we can expect the unexpected, that is, that we can learn not to count God out of our stories, but to anticipate that he will show up and work in them even if we do not know exactly how. 
 
            In a few days we will step into a new year together, and, if we’re honest with ourselves, we bring with us many old fears.  At a time like this, the gospel reminds us that although the future is unknown, it is not uncertain.  God has guaranteed how the story will end, and in the meantime he promises to be with us in our stories.  If all of this is so, then a new year does not have to be defined by fear, worry, and doubt.  Rather, a new year can be defined by hope as we have confidence that God is sovereign over all things and that he will show up in our lives in new and good ways in the year to come.
2 Comments

First, a Gift

12/18/2018

0 Comments

 
    A few weeks ago my family and I stayed overnight with some friends out of town.  As soon as we had gone into their home and set our bags down, our hostess brought out some gifts she had gotten for our daughter: a coloring book, some markers, and a stuffed animal.  There was no occasion for these gifts; it was not our daughter’s birthday or another holiday.  Our hostess had gotten these gifts for our daughter simply because she wanted to.  Watching these gifts be given by our hostess and received by our daughter at the very beginning of our visit made a big impression on me, and set the tone for the time we would spend with them.​

    Many people suppose that when God meets us his first word to us must be something like “Stop it!” or “Do better!”  We imagine that God has had it up to here with our messes, and that if we are to stay in his home, if he is to do anything for us, then we must agree and adapt to his terms and conditions.  First, we suppose, we must earn God’s favor by our obedience.

    But this is not the God I read about in the Bible.  In the Bible, I read of a God who creates a good world and gives our lives to us in that world as a gift.  I read of a God who rescues a helpless people out of slavery and gives them a place to call home as a gift.  I read of a God who shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners he sent his Son to die for us as a gift (Rom. 5:8).  God has instructions and commands, he wants to make us holy as he is holy, but first—and always first—he gives us a gift. 

    The gift of gifts that God gives is himself: his Son “who, though he was in the form of God . . . emptied himself . . . taking the form of a servant, [and] being born in the likeness of men . . . humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:6-8), and his Holy Spirit, the Helper, by whom God makes his home in us (John 14:15-24).  Yes, we must eventually learn to give ourselves back to God and to give ourselves to others, but our giving will be impossible unless we first receive what God has given.

    This week, as we reflect on the birth of Christ, our first duty as believers is to receive the gift of God.  That means that before we do and give and serve and act for God and for others we must receive God from God.  Until we do this (and learn to do this over and over again) we are doomed to frustration, burnout, and competition in our attempts to obey.  We must remember that God’s first word to us was not a commandment or an ultimatum, but was his Word that became flesh, dwelt among us, and died for us (John 1:1-5, 14).  Thank God that first, before he had given us his commandments and before we had become holy as he is holy, God gave us the gift of himself.  May that gift make a deep and lasting impression on us, and may it set the tone for all that follows in our lives.
0 Comments

When I Grow Old

12/6/2018

0 Comments

 
“Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

​I ran a marathon last Saturday.  I hesitate saying I did because I did so poorly. It didn’t go like I had planned.  In fact, by mile 10 I had all but run out of gas, and as I watched the half-marathoners split off from my course, I yearned to follow.  But I had much farther to run.

I am a young man.  I turned thirty less than a month ago, and, if the Lord wills, there is much life left ahead of me.  I know only a little about this race and the sorrows it can bring.  I understand so little of it now and so little will I understand before I am old.  I have had change thrust upon me and there are changes still to come. 

But, I have always had my heroes.

As a boy I had many heroes: the boys basketball team from my hometown’s high school that went to state, the men I read about in Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, my own big brother.  Through the years I have kept heroes, though, compared to those of my childhood, they seem pretty prosaic today: old men and old women who have stayed faithful to God and who have stayed faithful to one another; old men and old women who, in their old age, have not grown gray in their zeal for God or become wearied in working for the Church. 

These are my heroes.

And, from this young man, on behalf of young men and women in the Church, I want to urge the old: Press on. Do not stop or change courses so close to the end of your race; stay faithful to God, stay faithful to the men and the women at your sides, and finish your race.  There are others still behind you, looking to you for the strength to keep going.

Today, I am around mile 10 of my race.  There are many miles left for me to plod and I know that I know less of this course than many of those running around me.  And, as I look up ahead to those so close to the finish line, I see many still running, some struggling even to walk, some stopping, and some dropping out.  I speak for a young Church when I say to the old—risking sounding audacious and impetuous in my youth—“Finish.”

Lord, give me this grace, and give all this grace: to run with endurance, to run well, and to finish. And when I grow old, may others look ahead to me, and watch as I lift my arms in celebration, having made it to the home stretch. 
0 Comments

Light to the Nations

12/4/2018

0 Comments

 
“I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 
​Isaiah 49:6


    Advent is the season we celebrate light, the coming of God’s light to us in the person of Jesus. “I am the light of the world,” he said. “Whoever follows me will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The birth of Jesus was the first advent; his second coming will be the next. We live now between these two comings of Christ and are called to be “the light of the world” in the meantime (Matt. 5:14). “Now you are light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8).

    If our churches today talk about “light to the nations” we very often talk about overseas missions. From the perspective of the pews in which we sit, “the nations” are on the other side of the globe. Clearly, the impulse toward foreign missions is correct: the church needs to be in the business of bringing Christ’s light to those still in darkness, the world over.

    But, from the pew from which Isaiah, John, or Paul wrote the Bible, “the nations” is us.  From a Palestinian perspective, Beebe, Arkansas 2018 is “the nations” and these writers would have rejoiced to know that the light of Christ had traveled so far. Thus, light to the nations doesn’t only mean from here to there, from the U.S. to Timbuktu, but also from there to here, from the Jews to the Gentiles, from Jerusalem to our living rooms. 
​

    I am not trying to say that the church has arrived in some complete sense and that we can bring all of our missionaries home—far from it! The church must always go. But her going must be to those far and near, to those both there and here. God’s light must shine wherever there is darkness, and, looking up from where I write this note, I see that there are shadows in our neighborhoods, schools, and homes that Christ’s light has still yet to touch.

    I have heard it said that Christians are the only Bible many people in the world will ever read. I’d like to add that Christ’s coming in us may be the only advent many people in the world will ever know. Christ has come, yes, but his light still has some distance to go. There is darkness in our world, in our communities, right in front of our faces; we have friends, neighbors, and co-workers who do not know Christ, and we are called to be his light. It is not enough for God’s light to have come there, to Bethlehem so many years ago; God’s light must also come here, wherever there is darkness. May Christ come, and may his light come through you and through me.
0 Comments

Whatever You Give, Give Love

12/4/2018

0 Comments

 
    December is the month of gift-giving. Many of us will wear ourselves out trying to think of perfect gifts for friends and family. Some of us will nearly empty our checking accounts in order to purchase things for others. A few of us may even strike out with some of the things we give that we thought were good ideas only to realize too late they were not. ​

    1 Corinthians 13 is the Bible’s great chapter on love, and the first three verses of that chapter always knock the wind out of me. The claims in these verses are some of the boldest in all of scripture. There, Paul writes, “If I give away all I have . . . but have not love, I gain nothing.” 

    I do not think that Paul had the month of December in mind when he wrote these words, but I do find this verse to be appropriate reading for this time of the year—a time of year when we give a lot of things. Perhaps, as we begin this month of gift-giving, this verse merits our reflection.

    The perfect, most expensive, or ingenious gifts you give to others this season won’t mean much without love. We know this, I know, but it is worth remembering. Please don’t take this bulletin article as warrant to skip the gifts this year (I’ll have all the kids in the church mad at me if you do), but we must remember that our children, our spouses, our friends, and our families do not need more stuff: they need love. They need our attention, our energy, our smile, our time, and our words. 

    I hope you are able to give gifts this season and to know the joy of giving a good gift. I hope your gifts are thoughtful and meaningful and meet the needs of the ones to whom you give, and that you don’t strike out. But more than all this, I hope that whatever you give, you give love.
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Bulletin Articles

    ​Written by Matthew Love

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    September 2022
    June 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    December 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Location

Worship Times

​            Sunday Morning:  9:00am  Bible classes for all ages;  10:00am Worship

            ​Sunday Evening:  Small Groups meet 1st & 3rd Sundays of each month

            Wednesday Evening:  7:00pm devotional & classes for all ages

Contact Us

1906 W Center St.
Beebe, AR 72012

(501) 882-3539

​beebecoc@gmail.com