JasonWTriplett

January 6, 2022March 6, 2022

Suffering is the Most Powerful Love

Last night, my son came to me with his Bible open. He’d played the “Magic 8-ball” game with the scripture (as kids do). He chose a random book, a random chapter, and a random verse to read and think about before praying and heading to bed. He told me, “I needed some Jesus tonight before I go to sleep.” His facial expression told me he had a question. He pointed to this verse.

1 Peter 3:14 (ESV) “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,”

He was confused. The context of this verse is the Apostle Peter’s teaching to the early Church about being loving and compassionate to others while focusing on doing what is good before the Lord. It’s a teaching that helps us understand the role of good deeds and loving others as Christ followers amid opposition and persecution. Verse 14 troubled him. He asked me why Christians could suffer for doing what is good, right, and true. He was hung up on a notion that God would allow goodness in his people to be punished. He questioned how suffering could come from always trying to do what is good and avoiding evil.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this question from someone because it’s an inescapable thought that many people have. We are taught and come to believe that good behavior deserves good outcomes. Oddly, while many people believe this, it’s not true about the world. Life does not return goodness or evil to us based on our doing good or doing evil. Admittedly, we do see some good results from doing good things. But doing good in no way guarantees a life without pain or suffering.

We may ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is still a good question because it leads us eventually to a determination about God. The question assumes there is a system in place in the universe that returns good experiences when we do what we believe to be good. It’s like a big cosmic vending machine. When that vending machine breaks down, we tend to smack it around and decry the evil of a system that hasn’t given us what we are owed. The broken cosmic vending machine causes us to declare that someone now is in our debt, but God is clear, He and this world owe us nothing. (Romans 11:33-35)

Why does God allow suffering for those who’d seek only to do good and avoid evil? It’s because God is interested in us being the givers of authentic sacrificial love. He wants that powerful love to draw all people to a right relationship with Him.

Consider what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5:44–46 (ESV) “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?…”

Here the Lord Jesus says we are to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who’d oppose us and cause us to suffer. Only real love does such things. True goodness loves and prays for others even when they are the source of our pain. We are true children of our Father in heaven when we love those who don’t love us back. And when our doing of goodness and love relies on the vending machine returning the favor, it questions the authenticity of the good we are doing.

But God wants us to do good because it’s His good, not due to anything we get in return. He wants us to owe others nothing but to love them. (Romans 13:8) And he doesn’t want us believing that He or the cosmos owes us anything in return.

I told my son we emulate Jesus when we do good things for the reason that God is good and not for anything we get out of it. Whether we suffer or not shouldn’t change our desire to still love like Christ loves. For on the cross, He showed us this love and goodness. Jesus went willingly for people who’d caused him to suffer, doing the ultimate good for all humanity and He didn’t do it for Himself. He did it for us. And that love is powerful.

September 3, 2020September 3, 2020

Genuine Unity and Harmony are Found through Faith

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” Psalm 14:2–3 (ESV)

We want safety. We want certainty and guarantees. We want leaders, organizations and institutions to be solid, trustworthy and true. Lately, we seem to be finding none. There isn’t a leader, organization or institution who doesn’t currently suffer under some sort of scrutiny. From police departments to the federal supreme court, from social justice movements to local non-profits; all are being savagely examined. We have this feeling of betrayal as we hold these entities in good faith yet find them lacking.

Don’t think so? I disagree based on what I see. There’s one sure sign that indicates we are in an age where we collectively feel as if none can be trusted. Our uncertainty and upheaval, our penchant for moral dissection, our suspicion of all things is signaled by an ever-increasing division among the public.

Division is the taking of sides. One group stands in opposition to another, believing in their organizations, leaders and information hubs. Each side stands in scrutiny of the other, therefore all are under scrutiny. One of the worst things about COVID-19, our current cultural unrest and an election year is the polarity we are all feeling. Division is caused by disagreement. Disagreement is caused by the clash of ideas. No one’s exactly sure what information is trustworthy, so no ideas can really be trusted. Add in that we seem to have lost the ability to civilly mitigate our disagreements. Viola! A divided, skeptical and cynical public.

Division in times like these is a symptom and escalator of our problems and not any kind of solution. It makes no sense to oppose racial tension and division by using opposition and division. You can’t fight a virus if we can’t collectively decide what it is and how best to stop it based on solid information. The divisions increase and the situation becomes worse. Then our perspectives lead us to unfairly judge and separate from one another even in our small rural corner of Illinois.

I think the problem is the premise. It’s in the first line of this post. We all want safety, certainty and guarantees when nothing is really safe, nothing is certain and there are no guarantees. Yet, we demand these things from our societal leaders and entities.

No one can withstand the absolute demands of a fearful public. No organization or person can withstand absolute scrutiny. If we look closely enough we will see that all are fractured and corrupt. All have flaws. Broken leadership, institutions and organizations are the rule, not the exception as they are comprised of broken human members.

Maybe we should stop looking to leaders, institutions and organizations for certainty. Maybe we should accept that the world has never been a safe place. Life is worth all the uncertainty associated with it, but do you need guarantees to walk out of your front door? Most do not. I don’t. Maybe we should engage the adventure and risk. Safety, certainty and guarantees are only found by faith. In what should we put our faith when all other things are shaken?

We might not agree on these things. Through faith in Christ I (and many others) have decided to no longer stand on the guarantees, certainty or safety this world offers. Staking my claim on anything else tends to separate me from you. At this time I’m sensing that it’s supremely important that we work, in good faith, to close any division that might be between us.

August 5, 2020

Ideas Born in the Echo Chamber

I spoke about this in a message in Church a few weeks ago and wanted to elaborate on it.

echo chamber: an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered. (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/echo-chamber)

2 Timothy 4:3–4 (ESV) “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

In the scripture above, the Apostle Paul warns of a time when people will only listen to sources of information they agree with over those who convey the truth. These “seekers of information” will want to learn, but then rebel once reasonable teaching is given. They will construct for themselves realities of their own choosing. They will seek and accept only those voices around them which echo the affirmation of their opinion back to them.

Imagine a world where ideas are only accepted by people if they are already believed by people. It’d be a world where intellectual growth is stunted, mental heath is compromised and cultural (or personal) healing is impossible. The result would be chaos and insanity.

This is the reason God destined His Church to struggle in this world. By opposition, our faith is purified. (1 Peter 1:7) By suffering, we are awakened to God, challenged to keep the faith and be healed of our wounds by Christ. But in the echo chamber, there is no growth, healing or sanity. There is absolutely no space for faith because there is no challenge to ideas. The internet and social media are the prime sources of echo chambers in society.

We are seeing the dividends of this now. We find ourselves culturally in the place where entire ideas have been born in the echo chamber. Here’s how we can determine if the ideas presented to us have been born apart from good healthy scrutiny.

The ideas aren’t allowed to be challenged by opponents. If they are challenged, the reaction by those who support the idea can be visceral or even violent. (Ex: marginalization, internet tirades, blacklisting, mobs and rioting, etc.)
These ideas will spiral with increasing distance away from the truth or reality. (Ex: people are self-identifying as animals, different ages, genders, races, ethnicities. etc.)
Ideas born in the echo chamber will grow feet into movements of people which divide instead of unify, damage versus heal and deceive in place of living in outright transparency. (Ex: Basically anything political right now.)

This happens on the left and right, in red and blue states with democrats and republicans. This problem cannot be located to any one race, gender, ethnicity, nationality or, worst of all, religion. Bottom line folks, it’s dangerous to develop, propagate or follow ideas that avoid scrutiny. Without scrutiny, how would you know if you’re wrong?

This warning that Paul gives to his protege Timothy is to encourage the young pastor to continue steadfastly in his ministry of preaching the Gospel and teaching the truth. When we identify ideas born in the echo chamber our reaction should be the same. Speak the truth of Jesus with love. Don’t be afraid to have your faith challenged or be “outed” as a Christian. Through challenges to our faith we come to know it as the reality. We come to learn God is real and worthy of our entire devotion when we live outside the echo chamber.