Surprising Development!

I had a great time this past Saturday at the Yankee-Red Sox game with my daughter Ashley and my two grandsons, Ethan and Tyler. It was a perfect day for a baseball game and being a Red Sox fan; I enjoyed watching the Red Sox beat the Yanks, 10-5. It was an enjoyable afternoon indeed. It has been special to share the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox with my grandsons, and I hope to convert them to become Red Sox fans even they live in Michigan. But one of the most surprising things about this Saturday’s game is the section that we were sitting in (433) was alcohol- free section. I didn’t even know that the Yankees had alcohol-free seating sections and this is probably the only one in the stadium. What surprised me and many of the people who were coming into the section to be seated with their beers in hand was that it was not on our tickets that it was indeed an alcohol-free section. I wasn’t bothered a bit as I am not a drinker, but many of the people coming in were very upset when told they needed to go down into the hallway to finish their drinks before they could be seated. My daughter Ashley had noticed the sign when we were approaching the section, but I had not seen any indications that this was an alcohol-free section. Apparently, neither had most people who were bringing their beers in with them to their seats. I asked the usher who I was sitting right by why the tickets did not state that this was an alcohol-free zone. He responded, “Some of the tickets are marked, and some aren’t.” I said to him, “That sure makes your job a lot harder.” Some of the people were not at all happy. Personally, I was kind of glad because I didn’t have any obnoxious, drunken Yankee fans sitting by me.

Even as I was sitting there, I began to reflect on how the Yankees had let down their fans by not providing them the atmosphere they thought they were going to have to enjoy the Yankee game with their beers. I began thinking about how the things of this world and the things that we put our trust in will almost always disappoint us. And then I started to think about how awesome our God is who has promised to be a present help in time of need. Jesus is always with us, even in the midst of our trials and difficulties. How is Jesus with us? Jesus was with his disciples physically until He went up into heaven and now He is present with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit working in and through lives events. The Holy Spirit would be Jesus’s presence with the disciples that would never leave them. The Holy Spirit still indwells us today, and in Jesus’ last recorded words in Matthew’s gospel, we read, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” (Matt.28:20b NIV). There certainly will be times in our faith journey when we are disappointed and saddened by losses we may experience as we follow Jesus Christ. I don’t want to minimize those issues at all, but I also believe that God is the one who allows difficult things into our lives so that we may have a format from which to glorify Him. The writer of Ecclesiastics made a profound statement when he said, “He (that is God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to the end,” (Eccl. 3:11 NIV). I used to say when I get the heaven I’m going to ask God about this or that trial in my life. Now I believe that when I get to heaven, and I see the Lord Jesus Christ I won’t need to know all the answers. Just knowing that Jesus knows all the answers will be good enough for me. And yet it is in our difficulties that God shines forth His love and His life in its brightest fashion. For now, Jesus gives us many simple joys, like the love of family and friends. I see many ways that God is bringing together some loose pieces in my life and working things in the most peculiar and unusual ways to bring about fruitfulness and faithfulness. And along the journey, Jesus gives me many simple pleasures and delights in reminding me of His presence with me. I hope if you ever show up at the Yankee game and you’re sitting in the alcohol-free zone that you won’t be too disappointed. If you are a child of God just remember who is there with you and as you delight yourself in Him, He will bless you with desires of your heart.

In Christ’s matchless love,

Pastor Rich Sivo

  This past week I have been so blessed to find a place of amazing refreshment and relaxation. My wife and I have been vacationing with our grandsons and our two daughters and son in Northwestern Michigan. The use of the cabin where we were staying was a gift from a Christian couple who we met last summer when we went to honor one of our retiring missionaries in Kalkaska, Michigan (more about that next week). The cabin is a 3- bedroom house located on a 20- acre private lake. It is very quiet and secluded here with no Internet service, no cell phone service nor any television service. There is none of the modern-day technologies that we fill our lives with to distract ourselves. So, we are spending our time talking to each other, playing games together and enjoying each other’s company. We have plenty of room for my family plus my daughter Lisa’s lifelong friend Carrie came with her five-year-old daughter to be here for part of week as well. So far everything has worked out beautifully and both Deb and I are experiencing tremendous time of refreshment and enjoyment. The Scripture says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desire”, (Ps. 37:4). Many things are happening in our children lives. Deb was a little concerned that she might have to do too much cooking this week. Then my son Matt arrived and he took care of that concern. Matt, who cooks for a living, prepared meals for us Sunday through Tuesday. Lisa is starting a new job today (Wednesday) and so we are praying for this transition as an answer to prayer in her life. The fact that we could spend time with our children in such a beautiful place is an overwhelming gift from God. The Word instructs us as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ to make sure that we keep a Sabbath rest. As many people don’t practice a regular Sabbath rest it’s important that we get away for times of relaxation and refreshment.

   I greatly enjoyed our day on Sunday going to Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island is one of our favorite Michigan places and I very much desired to take my whole family there for a family outing. We were almost all together but Christina (our oldest child) is teaching summer school this year in Jersey City, so she’s not with us. I enjoyed going horseback riding with my grandson Ethan and our daughter Ashley. We also enjoyed the butterfly house there on Mackinac Island. On Monday morning, I had a golf round with Ashley, followed by a trip to Pond Hill Farm which is a very beautiful farm to visit in NW Michigan. All the food that is cooked there is fresh off the farm. I also caught a couple of bass on Monday which were part of our dinner last evening. I hadn’t fished since leaving Michigan in 2004, so this was a very pleasing experience. Matt and Deb took care of cleaning the fish. The grandsons also caught 9 blue gills, that delighted their hearts. It’s now 10 AM on Wednesday morning and my grandsons are still sleeping in. Ashley’s probably on her way back from spending the night with Lisa in Petoskey and Matt’s returned to his job in Bay City. Soon we will be returning to our responsibilities back to New Jersey but we are truly grateful and thankful to God for allowing us to have a special place of reflection, meditation and healing. It is the Lord who renews our souls and brings refreshment and rest from our wearying labors. Let us give unto the Lord Jesus Christ all the thanks and praise for He alone is worthy as He is truly the source of all our blessings.

Shalom,

Pastor Rich Sivo

Off the Grid!

     I will be today for our upcoming vacation next week in Northwestern Michigan. We try to get together with our kids and grandkids in Michigan a couple of times a year. What will be unique about this year’s trip is that we will be staying at a cabin on a lake that is very remote. In fact, it’s so remote that we have no computer hook up, cell phone coverage and not even a TV. It will be interesting to see how my 9-year-old and 13-year-old grandsons make out without the use of modern technology. But one thing that we will be able to do is to spend lots of time together as a family. A family is one of the most important legacies that any of us will ever leave behind. For the people of Israel God gave clear instructions about the training of their children. In Deuteronomy 6 we read these words, “These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you’re crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lay down and when you get up,” (Deut.6:1,2,4-7 NIV).

    God’s Word teaches that the training of our children was a crucial aspect of our parenting and our spiritual legacy. Passing on what God has given us is critical, and it even contains a promise of a long life. This exceptional promise is repeated in Paul’s writings in Ephesians 6 where Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” – which is the first commandment with a promise –“that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth,” (Eph.6:1-3 NIV). In both of these passages, God connects long life with children obeying their parents and honoring their father and mother. When children obey their parents and listen to them, they learn life lessons that later on have great preservation value. There is a difference between obeying and honoring our parents in these passages. To obey means to do as one is told while honor means to respect and love our parents. When children who are raised in a Christian home honor and obey their parents they are putting into place a very important life skill. By following the Lord’s training children’s lives are enriched, and a pattern of healthy decision-making is put into place. Disregarding biblical instruction and training also sets into place a pattern of bad decision-making that can lead to self-destructive behavior.

     I hope as we have time with our grandkids this week that we can instill into their lives some of the values that are so meaningful to us. I have always loved to travel and to play games with my family. I think we’ll be playing lots of games and fishing and swimming in the lake where we will be staying. But I also hope that I will be faithful in passing on a spiritual legacy to my adult children and my grandchildren so that they may learn to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not exactly sure how this week is going to go, but maybe I can get off some pictures as we journey throughout the week. Pray for my family and especially for Ethan and Tyler, for their hearts to be open to the instruction of the Lord and that their grandpa would be sensitive to teach life lessons concerning the Lord Jesus Christ without all the distractions of our modern world.

Shalom,

Pastor Rich Sivo

A note of sadness!

   I have been preaching on Sunday mornings over the last month in Matthew 23. It is the chapter where the Lord Jesus is rebuking the religious leaders of His day. Jesus has the strongest words of rebuke and condemnation for these religious hypocrites. His strongest words of rebuke were not for the prostitutes or for the tax collectors or even for the Gentiles but it was for these religious phonies. In fact, in our message last Sunday we saw Jesus calling them dirty dishes and cups, whitewashed tombs of dead men’s bones, and finally snakes and a brood of vipers. When someone calls you a snake it is not a compliment. Jesus’ rebuke of the religious leaders helps us understand their sheer hatred for Him. But when He comes to the end of his condemnation we see a certain note of sadness. We read Jesus’s words beginning in verse 37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing”, (Matt.23:37 NIV). When Jesus is pleading with Jerusalem he doesn’t mean the bricks and mortar that make up the city. Jesus is speaking about the center of the nation’s religious life where the tribes and individuals went up to give thanks unto God. Remember whole families came from all over the nation to be there for Passover. These events and words are recorded during Passover season. And here Jesus stands so burdened and broken by their sin.

    We can see from these words that Jesus’ rebuke has not been out of hatred or rage. It has been out of a deep compassion for the people of the city. There continued and obstinate rebellion that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the old city is what was breaking Jesus’ heart and He uses an illustration from Psalm 91 which reads, “He will cover you with his wings, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart,” (Ps.91:4 NIV). This illustrates again the compassion that Jesus had for the people. There’s no position so near to the heart of God than under His protection and wings. The very heart of God is being poured out in this passage and Jesus is pleading with them to surrender their hearts to Him. It is also very clear that Jesus is stating that there is a judgment that is coming once they reject the only way of salvation. But His words are masked in deep sorrow because that was really not His heart’s desire. His heart’s desire was to gather the people together and to provide protection for them.

    Jesus came to provide for them the way of salvation that He alone could provide. So we see that Jesus confronts these men in their sin to hopefully lead them to repentance. He also wants us to come to him with our brokenness and our sinfulness. Knowing that He is longing and desiring to make a difference for eternity in the lives of His people, that should be our desire as well. As children of God we should desire to see other members of the human race being brought into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. The gospel message is not just for us but is to be shared and declared in the world of brokenness and darkness that we currently live in. Jesus desired to gather his people as a hen protects her chicks but they wouldn’t let Him. I believe the same Jesus is speaking into our situation today. He comes to us in tenderness and compassion inviting us to follow Him. But we are the ones that must respond to his gracious invitation. Jesus will force none to take up their cross and follow Him. It is a decision of the individual will and it should be our desire to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives so that He can use us to touch other people’s lives for the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All praise to our great Savior,

Pastor Rich Sivo