Just a quick note: my dad graciously pointed out that one of the paragraphs in this sermon was theologically inaccurate, so I have put a line through that paragraph with a note at the end of the sermon explaining why I have scratched it. 

Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 2:22-24

“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Have you ever read a book for the first time, and you enjoyed it just fine, but then you read it again and appreciate it even more? Having read it once before, you now perceive different literary features layered throughout. You see foreshadowing in the dialogue and events, and you anticipate the plot turns. Your sensitivity to character development is heightened with each reading.

As I began to research Peter’s life in the gospels with this passage from 1 Peter in mind, I had the feeling of reading a book a second time. The words from this beautiful passage certainly make sense apart from knowing the human author’s bio, and they can stand on their own as God’s words spoken through Peter. But I think understanding some of his background may aid us in apprehending the power these words possess. In particular, I want to show that Peter’s repeated refusals to listen to Jesus set him up for blatantly denying him three times.

            Have you ever been talking with somebody, giving instructions or correcting them, and they say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got this. I know. Right, right, yeah.” Those of you who are teachers have gotten this response at times, I’m sure. You explain some concept that you know they don’t understand, and they go, “Ok yeah, yeah, I got it,” only to bomb the next test. Or those of you who have coached sports have probably explained to an athlete how to run a play, and they nodded their head, “Yeah, yeah, coach, I got this, no worries,” only to show they weren’t even close. Really, you would rather them simply say, “I have no idea what I’m doing” until they truly get what you’re saying, than to hold this cocky, unteachable attitude. Maybe you’re even falling prey to this attitude tonight, thinking as you listen to these sermons, “Ok yeah, yeah, I got this, I’ve heard this before, I can check out and text or nod off until we get to the songs and good stuff” Let me plead with you to listen to what God would speak to you tonight, because I think this attitude of misplaced confidence is what set Peter up for denying Jesus. Peter often had a very dismissive approach to Jesus’ words, leading him to often respond in dangerous ways.

In Matthew 16:21-23 we read, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Do you see what just happened here? Peter doesn’t understand at all why Jesus would suffer and die, but instead of listening attentively he outright contradicts Jesus. “Nah, no way, why would they do that to you? You’re being unrealistic, Jesus. Don’t be so paranoid.” Consider this building block one in the foundation for denial and devastation.

Secondly, in John 21:15-17, the account reads, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” I think, in this passage, Peter once again gives his automatic, self-confident answer to Jesus. “Of course I love you, what are you talking about? Come on now.” Yet, Jesus asks him three times in order to cut through that habitual self-confidence and get Peter to see the heart of the question. What makes this passage even more grieving is that Peter professes his love for Jesus three times, the same number of times he would vehemently deny him a short time later.*

All of the self-confidence and self-sufficiency that Peter has sown into over his years with Jesus is now about to be bitterly revealed on this night of Jesus crucifixion. See, though his eventual denial of Jesus seems to him to come out of nowhere, it is actually the harvest of many, many seeds of arrogance and independence.

Matthew 26:31-35:

Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.

Matthew 26:69-75

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

How heartbreaking is this story? Peter’s story cuts so strongly because it connects with me just a little too strongly, like an odor that conjures distant memories once thought to be vaulted away. How many times have you been in Peter’s place? Do you find yourself at times, like me, making promises to God as if you’re the one with the strength to sustain yourself? “Jesus, I will never deny you,” or, “I’ll never explode at my family again.” “I’ll never fall into temptation with lust again.” “Jesus, I’m done with slandering loved ones behind their backs, never again.” “I’ll never do anything to completely ruin my reputation, credibility, and testimony!” You see, when Jesus predicted his denial, Peter’s response was not, “Jesus, is it really so? Is there any way I can avoid this? What must I do to stay on guard? Pray for me that I might not fall into temptation, please. I don’t want to betray you, but it sickens me to hear this news because I know I am capable of everything you say.” No, his response is self-sufficiency: “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” It’s a great sentiment, but it’s not grounded in the right place (or more accurately, the right person).

This self-sufficiency builds him up for failure, like a kindergarten boy who builds a Lego tower with pride, only to have it knocked to pieces by the bully he wasn’t paying attention to. Peter is not a man known for his restraint, caution, or cool-headedness. So, that night, when Jesus was captured, Peter’s mind got completely distracted from the betrayal warning as he fought bitterly to defend Jesus.

Now in the Jewish courts, Jesus is tried and mocked by an infuriated mob of religious hypocrites, with no one there on his side. Peter likely saw the treatment and was afraid to involve himself, fearing the mockery, torture, and the likely beatings and suffering he would endure. Suddenly, his promise of “Even if I must die with you” was exposed for the bravado it was, nothing more than high talk among friends. “Jesus, you know I’ve got your back no matter what happens.” But now, Peter is faced with the “no matter what,” and he’s in such a petrified state that even the threat of a young servant girl connecting him with Jesus seems horrifying. How did he get to this moment?

Does that resonate with you? Maybe you’ve fallen and you find yourself saying, “God, I was finished with anger, slander, discontentment, bitterness, jealousy, worry, but now it has me completely entangled and I can’t see any way out! How did I get here? I was so determined, so convinced that I was strong enough to never get ensnared by that one again!” You hear the rooster crowing loudly, and he seems to be crowing right in your ear. Jesus’ piercing look is burned into your mind, so that you’re unable to avoid the grip no matter where you turn your eyes. You go out and weep bitterly.

“God, why do I even bother anymore? I’ve disappointed you with this so many times. I feel like it’s not even worth fighting anymore, because every time I get determined to overcome it, I just get defeated and demoralized by it again. Over and over, I’ve tried swimming against this current, but I’m exhausted and I’m further back from where I started. I just can’t deal with it anymore. No more promises, no more commitments, no more swimming, no more fighting. I’m done.”

I think we now see a deeply personal conviction in Peter’s heart behind his words in 1 Peter 2:22-24. “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

First, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” When Peter rebuked Jesus, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you,” deceit was found in Peter’s mouth. He committed sin in rebuking the One who rebuked storms. He committed sin in cutting off a guard’s ear, while guilty himself of not listening. And he committed sin in denying the One who would deny death. Peter now contrasts us with the One he vehemently disavowed. Lest we think we’re any better off, Romans 3:10-11 convicts us. “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God.” And yet, 1 Peter says “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” Let this contrast settle in your heart until it sickens you as it sickened Peter.

Second, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” Unlike Peter, who threatened and attacked in response to suffering, Jesus did not revile or threaten in return to mockery and accusations. When you read the description of Jesus “entrusting himself to him who judges justly,” you might accidentally think this has an almost negative connotation. You might unknowingly think this description means he is just holding all his anger back until God can give all these criminals what they deserve.  But that’s not the picture of Jesus’ heart we see in Scripture. Do you remember the words Jesus would speak on the cross when he was being reviled? Luke 23:34 tells us he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Here, Jesus Christ is in the throes of the most intense pain one can conceive of. Yet, with the few words for which his lungs can gasp the air to speak, he entrusts his murderers into the hands of him who judges justly. In the same way he entrusted those men to his Father, he “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance,” as Second Peter 3:9 says.

   Third, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Jesus didn’t just die on the cross to give us some example of self-sacrifice for us to follow. No, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” that we might have all our sins forgiven, be freed from slavery to sin, and enjoy innocence before our Holy God. If we get this, and I mean really get it, this understanding will inevitably lead to the “dying to sin” and “living to righteousness” this verse talks about. Peter went on to speak unashamedly for Christ, even telling Pharisees pointedly that they crucified the Messiah, winning thousands of converts to the faith by God’s grace. He conquered his arrogance and fear of man not because he mustered up the courage on his own to change, but I think because he finally understood that Jesus “bore his sins in his body.” When this became clear to him, his response was to die to sin and live to righteousness. A man once repulsed by the prospect of Jesus crucified now broadcasts it to millions of people over land and time.

I hold Peter’s story out to you not merely to present examples of what not to do, as if to join in what seems to be a popular trend that says, “Look how hard-headed Peter was, he just never got it. Let’s not be like that.” My goal in presenting Peter’s example is to say that we are like Peter. We have all relied on ourselves to obey God, and have suffered dearly the consequences of that self-reliance. Maybe you haven’t completely denied Jesus publicly, but I daresay if you continue to sow into this “I would never…” attitude, that time is coming. The good news is, Peter’s testimony can be our testimony.

 To those of you who know Christ personally as your Savior, you are free also to rejoice, saying “Christ died for my sins…He himself bore my sins in his body on the tree “ There is no double jeopardy in this verdict. Your sins cannot be counted twice, once against Jesus and then against you. You can know, as Romans 8:38-39 says so eloquently, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To those who have not trusted in Jesus for forgiveness of sins, I implore you with all my heart to trust in Christ. Peter’s only hope for forgiveness was that “He [Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” While the one who has believed in Christ never has to worry about judgment for his sins, apart from Jesus you cannot have this same comfort. John 3:18 says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Please, please don’t leave this place until you can say with full conviction and confidence that “Christ died for my sins…He himself bore my sins in his body on the tree.”

*Note on the paragraph I have a strike through: In my sermon, the example I use of Jesus asking Peter, “Do you love me?” is applied out of context. This conversation takes place in very last chapter of John (ch. 21 to be exact) after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In fact, this passage is Jesus kindly reinstating Peter.Therefore, when I said, “What makes this passage even more grieving is that Peter professes his love for Jesus three times, the same number of times he would vehemently deny him a short time later,” I had not done my research and was not being faithful to the text. 

On November 4, 2011, a grand jury[17] which had been convened in September, 2009, or earlier,[6] indicted Sandusky on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. The indictment came after a three-year investigation that explored allegations of Sandusky having inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old boy over the course of four years, beginning when the boy was ten years old. The boy’s parents reported the incident to police in 2009.[18] A grand jury identified eight boys that had been singled out for sexual advances or sexual assaults by Sandusky, taking place from 1994 through 2009.[19] At least 20 of the incidents allegedly took place while Sandusky was still employed at Penn State.[20] Attorney Joseph Amendola represented Sandusky.[6]
On November 5, 2011, Sandusky was arrested and charged with seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse; eight counts of corruption of minors, eight counts of endangering the welfare of a child, seven counts of indecent assault; and other offenses.[21] Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz (who oversaw the Penn State police department) were charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse by Sandusky.[22][23]
According to the indictment , in 2002 assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant,[24] said he walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten-year-old boy. The next day, McQueary reported the incident to Paterno, who informed Curley. Ultimately, it is alleged, the only actions Curley and Schultz took was to bar him from bringing children to the football building, take away his keys to the locker room, and report the incident to Second Mile; these actions were approved by school president Graham Spanier.[25] The indictment accused Curley and Schultz not only of failing to tell the police, but also of falsely telling the grand jury that McQueary never informed them of the alleged sexual activity.[26] -Wikipedia

You’ve probably heard by now about Joe Paterno, Penn State’s head football coach, who was fired over his connection with this Jerry Sandusky case.

If Sandusky’s actions weren’t troubling enough, the depth of corporate injustice in this case is horrifying. The fact that the university administration knew about these incidents and continued to cover them up for the sake of its brand is not only legally abysmal but morally sickening. The man rapes and sexual abuses child after child, and the administration responds by taking his keys away, like a customer at the bar who has had one too many to drink? Repulsive. Disgusting. Angering.

Why do these emotions well up within us when we hear of cases like this one? Is it not because God placed in us a sense of justice, a sense of nobility in protecting the most valuable rights of helpless young people? We understand the trauma and emotional scarring that will continue for the rest of those children’s lives, and subsequently we clench our fists at the perversion and corruption of a man who would inflict such lifelong distress.

If we experience such intense hatred of sin and longing for justice when we hear these stories, can you imagine what God’s heart must sense? We feel this way from time to time as we are informed of scandals. But God in his omnipotence sees every case of rape and abuse that ever has transpired and that is likely transpiring somewhere in the world as I type this sentence. If I were a father and I found out a man was sexually abusing one of my children, it would take an immense amount of God’s grace for me not to go to that man’s house and beat him senseless and to instead let the courts carry out justice. If we humans feel so passionately for the necessity of retribution, how much more is God’s holy anger kindled with every passing act of injustice?

One day all things will be made right. Either those horrific sins will be retroactively placed on Jesus through repentance, or violators will experience the full dose of God’s unrestrained anger. Can we propose a more just solution? I think not.

Psalm 140:12
“I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”

Isaiah 1:17
“Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

But enough of that depressing talk! This is a guide for new “collegers” with some advice for how to best navigate this oft-mucky world of college. I’ll start off with some practical advice for making sure you stay on track to graduate on time, then we’ll cover some miscellaneous tips for being an excellent student, and lastly we’ll talk about how to keep your faith strong during all this chaos.

In no particular order:

1. If you’re not 110% sure what you want to major in, cover all your general electives before taking any major courses. Even if you end up having to take some harder major courses together in a later semester, that’s still better than taking classes that won’t count for anything if you decide to change majors. Most people do change majors at least once in college. Heck, I’ve been tempted to half-a-dozen times.

2. Try to decide on a major as early on as you can and stick with it. No matter what you major in and how passionate you are about something, you’re going to doubt your choice of major. Just choose a field you enjoy and can see yourself working in for a long time, preferably a field that pays decently, and stay with it. People tell you early on that you have awhile to think about it, but “awhile” comes in a flash once you start college, so start thinking hard!

3. Before every semester, go to an advisor to work out your classes. You may think you don’t need to if you just have a list of the classes you need in front of you, but advisors can help a lot. They know what classes can be substituted in what categories, what order you’ll want to take certain classes in, and a host of other useful information. They’ll help make sure you’re on track.

4. This is sort of a corollary to number 3. As useful as an advisor is, make sure you also work out everything yourself. Don’t depend on anyone to make sure you’re on track for graduating or that you’re taking the right classes. It’s best if you try to plan everything out and then go to an advisor to run everything by them to make sure you haven’t overlooked anything. I made this mistake and really got messed up in community college, which meant an extra semester to finish up two classes I could have fit into other semesters if I’d taken the time to plan.

5. Advisors will usually try to get you to only take 12 or 13 credits. Don’t listen to them, especially in community college, if you’re a good student. In particular, for your first few semesters, classes are easier, so you’ll probably want to take 5 classes or so. You can always check everything out the first few weeks, too, and just drop one if it looks like it’s going to be unbearable.

6. Always check Ratemyprofessors.com when you sign up for classes. Get the best professors you possibly can, even if it means a crappy schedule. You’re stuck with the professor for 15 weeks of your life. Save yourself the stress, boredom, anger, and bad grade; only take good professors if at all possible. Some people take worse professors because it fits into their schedule better, but I think it’s better to rearrange your schedule to your professors than the other way around.

7. Adding onto #6, you should know when to take easy professors. If you’re taking an elective that you’re not going to be building on (for example, an arts/humanities or behavior science class), take the easiest professor you can get (according to Ratemyprofessors.com or your friends’ suggestions). But if it’s a prerequisite for another class (e.g. for me, my math or computer science classes), you want a professor who teaches well but will make sure you learn the material.

8. If you do get stuck with a bad professor and you get a bad grade, don’t stress over it too much. Get all the help you can get. Take advantage of the free tutoring/help centers available at every college. But sometimes you just get dealt a bad professor and he/she’s the only one who teaches that class you’re required to take. It happens. Don’t worry.

9. If you’re a community college student like I was, and you’re planning on transferring to a 4-year university when you’re done, make sure you check that every class you take will transfer. Use ARTSYS before you sign up every semester. ARTSYS is a handy course equivalency program that will tell you what courses transfer to what institutions. It really stinks to take a class and find out it won’t even count once you transfer, wasting hours and hours of your life. Don’t let that happen. Take a little extra time to prepare.

10. I alluded to this in a previous tip, but lay out your goal for graduation from the outset. Figure out when you want to graduate, and split up the courses you need to take semester by semester. You don’t want to get surprised at the end with an extra class or two that you didn’t account for. Believe me, it’s worth the time up front.

Now, for some general tips on being a good student:

11. Don’t procrastinate. Believe me, I’m still learning this one. But I’m starting to get better with it, and it’s saving me a lot of stress. Set manageable goals for yourself. If you get assigned a massive semester-long paper and your professor doesn’t set deadlines along the way, make them yourself. Break it up into pieces. Decide on a time to do the research, then deadlines for a certain number of pages to have written by certain days. Getting started is usually the hardest part, so just give yourself a small goal for getting started, like writing the introductory paragraph or thesis. Start on assignments as soon as you get them. Do the easiest parts first, and give yourself time to mull over the harder parts. This becomes increasingly important as you get into your upper level classes, where you will not be able to crank out assignments even if you do pull an all-nighter before it is due. If you can beat procrastination, that will be, by far, your best tool in your academic toolbox.

12. Going along with #11, when you are working, set yourself small goals to keep from getting distracted. If your attention tends to get diverted by Facebook or TV, tell yourself you’re going to work until a certain time and then reward yourself with a little Facebook/TV time. 5 minutes per every 30-45 minutes tends to work well for me. Or, you can do the same thing with a certain amount of problems or pages you want to get done.

13. Sit in the front rows. That’s where all the smart kids sit. All the people who want to text and whisper to each other sit in the back rows.

14. Get to know at least one person in each class. Study with them. Be able to ask each other questions. Having somebody you can work with, especially in your more difficult classes, will prove invaluable. This is especially important in your major classes, since you may end up taking other classes with them.

15. Get to know your professor. This is more difficult if you’re at a larger university in lecture halls. But for your smaller classes, make a point to talk to your professor somehow. This way, they know your name and that you’re taking an interest in the class. Don’t underestimate how far this connection goes in not only your professor’s willingness to help you, but even your grading. Make small talk with your professor before or after class. Ask questions. Participate. Email questions. Anything you can do to show you care about doing well in the class will help.

Well this has ended up being a bit more time consuming than I anticipated, so I am going to take a break here. I hope this has been helpful! I will add more tips in this section as I think of them, and will continue another time with a new post on keeping your faith strong during college. Feel free to comment with anything you’ve found helpful for you in your college years.

Python Programming – Easy programming class. One of those classes you enjoy because you’ve already learned half the content before. I even skipped a few classes I knew I wouldn’t be losing out from with no problems.

Human Geography – Way too much material tested on for a low-level elective course. If you missed a single class, you’d be a goner come test-time. Good luck getting somebody to send you their notes in a class of 150. Writing projects were extremely tedious and grading harsh, but I can deal with time-consuming work. Swung out a low A after the curve.

Honors 200 – An honors seminar class on Race, Religion, and Gender. Constant heavy reading and an even heavier liberal bent (my professor was an old hippie type who described himself as a radical Marxist). Writing intensive course with 450 word essays on the long readings every week, plus a 12-15 page research paper at the end. Yet another time-consuming course, but I don’t mind writing too much, so I pulled out an A in the end.

Linear Algebra – Taught by an old German man named Florien who had a thick accent and an affinity for tangents about history. He would scribble theorems on the board and work out whole problems without turning around to face the class. For all 5 of my math courses at Harford Community College, Trigonometry through Calculus II, I had a wonderful professor named Chris. He explained every topic thoroughly and clearly. Chris is the kind of professor who makes you feel as if, by asking him a question or going to him for help outside of class, you’re making his day instead of imposing on his busy schedule. Because of Chris, I finally felt I was good at math, though still a little slower than most of my classmates. His German UMBC counterpart, however, was quite the contrary. He would show up five to fifteen minutes late to class every day and lecture unintelligibly. More than half the class never showed up or had dropped it a few weeks in. Of those remaining, half of them left once they turned in their homework and the professor turned around to absorb himself in the blackboard. An originally maxed-out room of 70+ people shrank to less than 20 survivors most days. I would read the book and bust my butt on the homeworks. I found a YouTube Channel with someone who actually taught Linear Algebra well and watched for hours to prepare for exams. But to no avail: My first exam was a 57, and the other two weren’t any better. Thanks to my homework grades and his course grading scale of 60+ as a C, I barely managed to balance out to a C overall in the class. Not the end of the world, right?

It was for me. Upon receiving my first exam grade of 57, my heart sank. I had never gotten a grade that low on any important test in college up to this point. For me, I took pride in the fact that my test scores were consistently in the A and B range, and congratulated myself on my President’s List letters. I enjoyed making subtle references to the fact that my tuition at Harford was covered by a writing scholarship and that I had never gotten anything besides an A in two years of college. I was at the pinnacle of my academic pride, and I’m so thankful God found a way to push me off.

See, when I got that grade back, I began despairing. What’s going to happen to my scholarship opportunities? What if I completely fail the course? What if this ends up setting me back in my graduation trajectory? What’s going to happen to my GPA? How are employers going to look at my GPA? My thoughts deteriorated from a concern over one class grade to an overall despairing outlook on my life and future. The immediate course of events was: Bad grade on exam -> Doubt God’s faithfulness.

In that moment, I could not see that God would allow a C to crush my self-reliance for a reason. Looking back now, I would have enjoyed crushing me because I now see how absorbed I was in my own abilities and grades.

But it’s as if God was saying, “Steve, I’m going to strip you of your 4.0 so you can see that your foundation is not in a university. I’m refining you by fire, and right now a lot of arrogance and independence is being burned up in the process. The straw of intelligence and performance you were building your house of hope on is being swept away by the storm. You need to place your hope and trust for the future entirely in me, not your grades, brains, work ethic, relationships, or anything else.

So now, I am completely failing my Data Structures class this semester and am going to have to retake it next, but it’s not the end of my world. I’m learning that UMBC is not Harford, and some classes are simply over my head. I’ve worked as hard as I can to succeed, but am failing. For a couple of weeks, my failing grade in that class began to sank me into a depression, even deeper than last semester.. But now I am being reminded that God did not disappear when I got a C. His faithfulness has never been blighted and his plans have never been thwarted by me or my grades.

As I drop the class and a ‘W’ shows up on my transcript, I will be at peace. I say this not to belittle the cost of tuition (which my parents so generously pay) or the importance of graduating ASAP. Even now, I continue to attend the lectures and work on the assignments to learn for next semester. But I do so with a heart at peace, resting in a comfort-giving God who cares more about my heart than my GPA.

“Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” -Psalm 9:10

What is it about our human condition that we so naturally assume we deserve what we’re given? In this case, the problem looks something like this:

1) Facebook gave us a site to use freely (if you don’t count your private data being sold to advertisers )
2) Facebook changes some features of their product, which still costs nothing to the user
3) Facebook users become livid with Facebook for ruining their lives.

Somewhere between steps 1 and 3 there is a massive assumption on the part of users. Perhaps, instead, it ought to look like this:

1) Facebook gave us a site to use freely (if you don’t count your private data being sold to advertisers )
2) Facebook users assume that because they have been given the privilege of using the site for so long, they have earned the right to have everything about the site stay exactly the way they please.
3) Facebook changes some features of their product, which still costs nothing to the user.
4) Facebook users become livid with Facebook for ruining their lives.

But what sense does assumption 2 really make? On what grounds does the user deserve to have things stay the way they please? This reaction is akin to a child opening an iPod for Christmas and yelling at his parents that it’s not the right color. For some reason, when we have been given something for long enough, we escalate privilege to the level of right, and we’re furious when somebody steps on our supposed rights.

Don’t we tend to do this with everything in our lives? We hold a job for some time and we’re devastated when it’s lost. We have our health for our whole lives, and we’re destroyed when we find out we’re ill. We have a long, happy relationship and it crumbles. But were we ever right to assume these, or are we guilty of equating blessings with rights? Are we not merely users in God’s cosmic free site?

“”Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”" -Job 38:4-7

You: “Alright kids, does anybody have any prayer requests?”
Billy: “My great-grandmother is 97 and she has cancer.”
You: “Ok, we’ll pray for your great-grandmother. Anyone else?”
Sally: “My dog has lots of ticks and my mom says if we can’t get rid of them we’re going to have to take him out and give him the Old Yeller treatment. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.”
You: “Ok, we’ll pray for your dog…”

And the conversation continues on like this as kids share about their friend’s dad’s uncle who shot himself in the foot hunting and other odd scenarios that you’re forced to keep your composure through.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that the prayer requests of adults are less bizarre, yet they’re still usually related to sickness and health. “Please pray for my dad, he’s getting knee surgery tomorrow so just pray that everything would go smoothly.” “Please pray for my sister, she’s got a cold and is feeling nauseous.”

Are these wrong to pray for? Not at all! God cares for the little concerns of life, too. He wants to heal us of our infirmities, big and small. But if our requests are almost exclusively requests for physical healing or for safety or smooth sailing, we miss the most important things.

God wants to change our hearts. Even more than perfect health, God wants to draw people closer to himself. Bill’s uncle’s knee surgery could go smooth as a whistle, and he could be back on his feet in weeks without realizing it’s God’s grace that got him through. Remember when Jesus healed the paralyzed man in Mark 2? While the man’s biggest problem appears to be the fact that he’s paralyzed, Jesus makes the point clear that this man’s greatest problem is not his physical informity, but his standing before God. “Go, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus healed the man because he loved him and was merciful, but he showed everyone present that his greater concern was for this guy’s heart to be healed from sin.

And after Jesus heals the paralyzed man in John 5, he told him to go and sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to him. Again, Jesus took pity on the man and healed him as he desires to do, but time and again I see in the gospels that Jesus’ healings were almost always accompanied by teaching the person to repent and follow him.

So, should we pray for healing? Absolutely. But I think we should pray even more for God to work in people’s hearts through the sickness and through the healing, that they may bring glory to God and praise him.

All of this to say, I think our prayers ought to be less about God changing our circumstances and more about God changing our hearts. Should we pray for our friend to land the job he wants? Sure! But maybe it would be better to pray that your friend would trust God and his providence regardless of whether he gets his dream job, so that his family and those around him may be encouraged by his faith. This is just one example among many, but I think that our prayer requests and prayers reveal our maturity and our perspective of what matters most.

Ephesians 6:18-20 says:
“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak”

Notice Paul’s biggest concern here? Not for safety. He’s in chains and has been experiencing all kinds of agonizing persecution. His prayer request is that he would be a bold witness no matter how painful the consequences are. He wants boldness to speak as he knows he ought to speak.

So let’s think about our prayer requests. If your request is purely asking God to change a situation in your life or someone else’s to make it easier, think through that request and what it reveals about what you’re wanting most.

Have you ever heard a prayer like this one? First off, it’s full of “Fathers” and “justs”, which seem to be the “ums” and “uhs” of prayers. Also, these types of prayers are full of platitudes we use that sound good but lack substance.

Let’s take, for example, the phrase “God, please be with so-and-so.” Unfortunately, the meaning of this isn’t very clear. It would seem to assume that God is not already with that person, that he isn’t already omnipresent. When someone prays this phrase for a Christian, it’s even less clear, because God promises ” “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5) If it’s true that God will never leave us, we ought to instead thank God that he is already with that person. Perhaps we ought to pray instead that God would make his presence more profoundly felt or that God would comfort that person or give them boldness or, if they’re unsaved, that He would reveal himself to them. Using the blanket sweep phrase, “be with so-and-so” is at best vague, and at worst confusing.

Secondly, I want to challenge the phrase “God, we just thank you for who you are.” This phrase is perhaps even more unclear than the previous. What does it mean? Imagine if I wrote my mom a Mother’s Day card and I just wrote “Mom, I just want to thank you for who you are. Love, Steve” What kinds of questions is she left with? She would probably wonder “What does he mean? Who am I? What kind of characteristics and qualities does he have in mind that he’s thankful for? What have I done for him that he’s thankful for? I wish he had highlighted at least a few specific qualities of my character that he’s thankful for and told me why he was thankful for them.” Of course, God knows our hearts and knows what we’re thankful for, but maybe we don’t. Maybe we’re just throwing that out there without really thinking about anything we’re actually thankful for about who God is, in which case it’s an empty phrase. And since this phrase is being used in public prayer, it’s not very beneficial for those hearing it, since they may be left with the questions I mentioned in the analogy of the Mother’s Day card.

One other little thought about prayer habits. Have you ever noticed that some of us tend to use God’s name like punctuation? “We just pray, Father God, that you would be with us, Father God. Father God, we thank you for this day, Father God. Amen.” I’m guilty of this one. I’m also guilty of listening to people who pray this way while trying to predict when the next “Father God” will be in their sentence. I know, I’m a heathen! But I’ve been thinking that perhaps using the names of God (God, Father, Lord) as filler words can tend to diminish the significance of those names. They roll off our tongue like commas and periods in a sentence. I’m glad people don’t talk to me that way! “Steve, would you come here, Steve. I just want to talk to you, Steve, and thank you for who you are, Steve.” Somewhere along the line I might consider punching that person. Just kidding. Maybe.

Anyways, these are just a couple of thoughts, and they’re not meant in any way to sound condescending. I know I have habits in my prayers that render them less effective, as well as words and phrases I don’t think about. These idea are only meant to provoke some thoughts and challenge us to think carefully about what we’re saying when we’re speaking to our Creator. What are some phrases you hear often that are confusing or seem to be used without much thought? I’d love to hear them so I might be challenged, especially since I may be guilty of them!

Don’t you just love watching somebody geek about about something? Math professors seem particularly prone to this seemingly unprovoked ranting about the glories of a mathematically concept. In ninth grade, I had a the most enthusiastic teacher I’ve ever had teach me geometry, and it was one of the most enjoyable classes I ever took. Most people proofs and theorems, but to Mrs. Styker, proving the Pythagorean Theorem seemed to hold more excitement than opening presents on Christmas morning. For 5 of my math classes in college (Trigonometry, Precalc, Calculus I & II, and Discrete Structures), I had a professor named Chris Jones who explained things more clearly and was more helpful than almost any other teacher I’ve ever had. Once again, he was known to rant about the beauty of mathematical order and the ways you can manipulate values to get what you’re looking for. He was even known to describe mathematical concepts as “sexy” (as in, “…and that’s how you can use the integrals of two functions to find the area bounded by a curve. That’s sexy.”).

I’ve been known to geek out about all kinds of topics: drumming, computers, English grammar, language, etc. We consider it to be geeking out when somebody gets more excited about something than seems appropriate given the topic. For example, we all use computers, but to get excited and discuss processors and memory seems geeky to most. However, I think that getting excited about some field that someone has learned a lot about brings glory to God. In the example of math teachers, God created the world in an ordered, reasonable way such that mathematical concepts can be applied to figure out and predict how things work. Excitement about those universal rules seems to be a manifestation of a greater appreciation for God’s order than most people have, and thus I believe it is because we are in the image of God that we find beauty in that (some more than others). I think it is beautiful that God creates us all with different interests, as I believe it shows we all have varying levels of appreciation for the way God has created his universe.

I’ll probably expand on this later, but that’s all for now. Keep geekin’ out to the glory of God!

So when I was listening the other day, Grudem had a guest speaker talk on the topic of time: what it is, how it works, whether it is quantifiable, etc. The man was a Ph.D. in physics who actually wrote an amendment to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, so suffice it to say a good bit of the lecture went over my head. What I did grasp of it, however, I simply can’t stop pondering. He started off with a short crash course in Physics that took me back a few years to Senior year of high school, remembering the days of solving dreaded momentum and velocity equations (at least it wasn’t as bad as Chemistry!). Starting off, he talked about relative motion and how a motion can be perceived with equal validity from different perspectives and get different values. For example, think of a person who is moving 30 miles per hour in a car looks who looks at a person driving a car 50 miles per hour in the same direction. The first person who is moving 30 mph would see the person who is moving 50 mph and see him moving at 20 mph because of relativity (50 – 30 = 20 instead of 50 – 0). However, according to Newton’s Laws, there is no absolute rest because any point of reference in considering motion is equally valid.

Now, if I haven’t lost you already, let’s try to take this approach to measuring the speed of light (186,000 mi/sec). Consider measuring the speed of light from earth and from a rocket ship traveling 93,000 mi/sec relative to earth. If the same rules apply from the car example, we would think that the rocket would measure a different speed than we would get on earth. The odd thing is, the measurement remains 186,000 mi/sec no matter what frame of reference we measure from. Weirdly enough, a person in that rocket actually experiences a different time than a person on earth. And on earth, two events could appear simultaneous on earth, but moving in space a person would see it at a different time. In other words, time, like motion, is actually relative! According to everyone on the earth, time is perceived the same way. One hour is one hour, one month is one month, whether you’re in Baltimore of Beijing, right? But what seems like the most constant thing we experience (and indeed even among physicists is the most accurate constant they have) is actually a relative dimension in the space-time continuum. How mind-blowing! God’s creativity is amazing!

One other notable concept from the lecture was that Newton’s Second Law of Entropy actually points to a created origin. You see, the Law of Entropy says that matter goes from order to disorder. Basically, matter is always deteriorating and breaking down, not improving. This contradicts the theory of everything developing from some blob of matter into a complexly structured universe.

Anyways, it’s 2:00 a.m. now and I should probably get some sleep since I have to get up somewhat early tomorrow, but I hope this made some sense. And if it did, I hope it also increases your appreciation of the awesome, creative power of God!

To listen to the full podcast, follow this link and look at #31: What is Time?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wayne-grudems-systematic-theology/id322844869

I hardly ever wear matched socks.

Actually, it doesn’t bother me anymore. In fact, what used to be a persistent endeavor to plumb the depths of the sock basket for a match has become a passive, apathetic attempt before giving in for “close enough.” My sister has lectured me on the issue, heralding the merits of following the long-embraced social convention that is matching pairs of socks. I just don’t see the big deal. If I’m wearing shoes and pants, and the two look close enough, what’s the problem? As the comedian Steven Wright says, “I do match my socks…they’re the same thickness.”

But the other day as I was indifferently scanning the basket for a couple of socks that look close enough, I began to think. Before long, I realized my sock habits are like my sin habits. My once diligent quest for sock order diminished over time through repeated compromises. The more I settled for “close enough,” the less I cared about the real deal. In the same way, repeated compromises with sin leads to sinful habits, and sinful habits rob me of the real deal of godly ambition and the pursuit of holiness. James 1:14-15 says, “But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Integrity becomes inconsistency, ambition dissolves to apathy, and striving fades to settling.

Let’s match our socks and kill our sins.

“It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away
It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It’s a slow fade, it’s a slow fade”
-Casting Crowns, Slow Fade

“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” 1 Corinthians 10:12