The Phil Files

You’ve probably heard of the old TV show Let’s Make a Deal and the new, Howie Mandel and banker driven Deal or No Deal. You may have even heard the often overused expression in sports, “the real deal.” But I want us to think for a minute about the Jesus Deal.

I find it heartbreaking that Jesus — who was beloved by non-religious folks and often in trouble with the religious ones –  gets buried underneath all our religious stuff. I guess I was convicted recently in listening to a friend speak. I didn’t exactly agree with a tiny part of what he was saying, but the heart and the passion underneath it all really convicted me — even the part he said about church that made me a little uncomfortable. One statement, however, really tore open the rusty-hinged door to my own heart’s passion: “If we are not sharing the gospel in our preaching or our teaching here, come get in our face about it.”

Yeah, that’s the Jesus deal. We’ve got to be all about sharing the message of God’s good headlines about the Jesus and the lifestyle of people whose hearts are captivated by Him.

Folks can be pretty turned off about the word “church” or us referring to church. I know, because I live in a place that is supposed to be this great religious mecca, but in fact, it is full of people who are quite turned off by the church deal. This is not so much because church is a bad idea, but because we’ve kinda forgotten what church is and buried Jesus under our religious stuff that’s covered up what it is supposed to be.

In the Bible the word “church” simply means a gathering of folks — it’s not even a particularly religious word. But when the folks getting together were people who followed Jesus, it was real church: a gathering of people whose hearts were captivated by Jesus. Yet I find so much of what we talk about, teach about, preach about, is never filtered through the Jesus deal.

I’m not so sure we check out what Jesus said or what He did or how He treated people to see if the stuff we are saying in church fits with the Jesus deal. We just see if … 1) we agree … 2) if it agrees with what we’ve heard before … 3) and if it fits our bend and color on the Christian rainbow. I wonder how much would change if we simply would ask the question: “Okay, based on how Jesus treated people and what He said, does what we are saying really fit?”

When Paul gave his famous memory verse on the Scripture being “inspired” and all, he pretty much tells us that Scripture helps us find deliverance from all our crud (“salvation”) if we run it through the Jesus deal — “the sacred writings that are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15-17). John starts his message about Jesus by saying Jesus is God’s Message (John 1:1-18) — not part of it, but the whole of it. The unknown author of Hebrews, led the Spirit, said that Jesus is God’s complete message for these last times (Hebrews 1:1-3). So why don’t we listen to Jesus, just like God told Peter, James, and John to do on the mountain? (See Matthew 17:1-5!)

As I visited the other day with a friend who has struggled with what the Bible teaches on a certain subject — and trying to come to a clear decision about the subject  because her life was once blown apart by her own sinful choices — I challenged her to call her spiritual problems by the name of a different sin and then go read the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and decide what Jesus would say to her. She had gotten so hung up in the two thousand years of debate about her issue, that she had forgotten to look at the real issue: what Jesus taught and demonstrated about God’s grace, forgiveness, and cleansing. All I was asking her to do was quit focusing on the legalistic technicalities of an issue that religious leaders have fought about since before Jesus was born. Instead, I urged her to listen to the Jesus deal. Her answer became a whole lot clearer!

So with the help of the Holy Spirit, I’m going to do my best to make sure when I speak, the Gospel is there. I want my teaching to pass through the Jesus filter and folks to know that when I speak, they’re hearing the Jesus deal and not just some dry, academic dissection of a religious argument. That doesn’t mean I don’t study, or get sloppy, or resort to slogans. But it does mean I’ve got to go back to original, deepest convictions about my ministry: I’ve put here to call people back to knowing Jesus. He’s the real deal or there is no deal … at least not a deal worth taking.

Despite all the appearances that I have dropped off the face of blogdom, I want everyone to know that I am alive and still kickin’ — at least for one more day. However, it feels like our family was asked by the DNC to be a volunteer poster family for the Hillary and Obama nationalized health care debate — we were the test family this week to see how health insurance works. (I think this also may be payback for my mom voting republican all these years.)

This is what I mean on the health care issue. My mom had knee replacement surgery on Tuesday … but hold on, that’s just the beginning! While I was waiting with Grady (mom’s husband) at the hospital for mom to come out of recovery, Donna (my wife) was with Megan (our daughter) at the doctor having an MRI read on the ankle she broke five years ago playing softball in high school — a plate and 7 screws was required then to patch it up. Megan did not receive a great report, so she is now referred on to an orthopedist — the same one who did mom’s knee surgery. Megan has been limping around and hurting pretty badly at the end of each day working as a tech at a physical therapy center. Meanwhile, I start my “day before colonoscopy” liquid diet today to get ready for my appointment tomorrow with the dreaded “long black snake” — be warned, I get a little cranky on water and Jello diets in anticipation of drinking concentrated saline so they can look at me where the sun doesn’t shine. While I am having my “procedure” tomorrow, Donna goes for blood work. Ah, can you say “insurance deductible” four times very quickly?

Of course it’s been a crazy and nutty work week for Donna at school and church is its normal insanity for me. Hopefully we all — mom, Megan, Donna, and myself — go home at the same time, in good health,. Of course I can’t be the one driving! They promise that they will dismiss me before I’m fully returned from “lala” land. But that’s what they said last time when I woke up during the beloved “procedure” — but that is a story for another day and time.

So if you ask me how the week has been, I would say, “We’ve paid our insurance deductible and are still standing.” But then, I haven’t survived the long black snake.

Nobody told me when I was 20 that falling apart when you are over 50 is “so much fun”!? Who needs TV when you can watch pictures of … well, let’s not go there.

As I have searched for spiritual application for my “procedure,” phrases from Genesis 3 keep popping into my mind:

“I was naked and hid myself.” (Yeah, that’s what I will want to do in the morning when they take my clothes, put me in that “gown” with no back door. I will want to hide.)
To the snake God said, “Because you have done this, curse are you among all the animals … upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” (Yeah, we all pretty much want to put a curse on the snake in moments like this.)
“I will put enmity between you and the offspring of the woman .” (Yeah, I’m going to hate this whole deal!)
“By the sweat of your brow …” (Yeah, I’m going to be doing this!)

On closer inspection, the only Scripture that seems to righteously apply right now is this:

[Jesus asked] “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” … And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles” (Matthew 7:19-20 NRS).

Which is, I guess, the Lord’s way of reminding me to not sweat the deductible, but work on the heart of the deductee — a heart that needs to be more patient, kind, gentle, appreciative, thankful, forgiving, empathetic, holy, and joyful. Amid all the whining, I’ve got a place to sleep, a family who loves me, food to eat, a church family to support me, friends to hold me accountable, resources to help provide health care for my family, and a million other blessings I don’t have time to name … and, by the Lord’s grace, I can pay my deductible.

So Lord, I ask that you take the whiny voice out of my heart and replace it with the heart of grace that Jesus had when he compassionately touched the lives of others. And LORD God, please be with all those we know who are truly wrestling with life and death health issues today, and help them to feel your presence and know that they are not alone in their struggles. Bless, especially O LORD, those who do not have access to health care or cannot afford it, and help us find ways to change that situation in our country and in our world, to Your honor and glory. Because of Jesus’ love for us, and in the name of the Great Physician, I pray. Amen.