Sparrows, Boring Sparrows

Sparrows were the Burger King value menu for the ancient world. There is nothing very special about sparrows. They aren't colorful like a cardinal. They aren't unique like a woodpecker. They aren't majestic like an owl. They aren't mighty hunters like a hawk. Sparrows are just plain, generic birds. Yet, Jesus said,

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows." -Matthew 10:29-31

Let's face it. Sparrows are boring. I have nothing against sparrows; it is just that they are plain and common. That was Jesus' point. That is why I am glad that Jesus did not say that God's eye is on the bald eagle. We would expect that! But if God cares even for the generic sparrow, then we can know for certain that His eye is on His children.

Above is a recent message I gave on Matthew 10:26-31. The section on birds starts at about 19 minutes.

The Longest Descent

This was a big drop. On October 14, 2012 Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner set a record by jumping from an altitude of approximately 128,100 feet. To give you an idea of how high that is, consider that a commercial airliner typically flies at about 30,000 feet. That's only 5.68 miles high. Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos jump was from over 24 miles. He was so high that he had to wear a pressurized space suit. You can clearly see the curvature of the earth in the video of the jump.

I like to think that because of all the Red Bull I've consumed I was part of making this happen.

There are some edited versions of the jump, but I think you should watch the full version to get the feel for how long this guy fell. (He actually jumps 3:30 minutes into this video.) He was in free fall for close to four and a half minutes and even broke the speed of sound on his descent.

That jump may seem impressive to you, but it is not the greatest descent ever recorded. Long ago, someone else descended from a much, much higher position. Consider this from Philippians 2:

⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷ but made himself nothing,
    taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    and became obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

No one has ever came down as far as the Son of God came down in humility. He existed eternally as God, but was willing to let go of those privileges and to put on genuine humanity. Jesus left the glory and comforts of heaven to live as human being. Not only that, but He, the Creator and Lord of the universe, became a servant. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mt. 20:28.) He served even to the point of death, and the most painful and humiliating death of all--crucifixion. 

When you celebrate Christmas, remember that Christmas is about the biggest descent of all time. Christmas is about the voluntary descent of the Son of God so that He could become fully human (and yet fully God). But Christmas was only the start. On Good Friday, Jesus completed His descent by dying on the cross as a substitute for everyone who would put their trust in Him as their Sin-bearer. That is why the Son of God came to earth. Remember that this Christmas.

However, there is one more thing to remember. For man, what goes up must come down. But for the Son of God, the route was reversed. Philippians 2 continues:

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

Cruciform Love in Marriage

What passes for love today is usually nothing more than feelings of attraction or self-gratification. To know what love really is we need to look to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

In his excellent book on marriage, What Did You Expect? Paul Tripp describes this as cruciform love--that is, love that shapes itself to the cross of Christ. Tripp defines this type of love as "willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving" (188). 

Tripp then unpacks this with about two dozen examples of what cruciform love looks like in a Christian marriage. This section is so powerful and convicting that I can only read a short bit at a time without stopping--sometimes to ponder, and sometimes to put the book down and act on it. In the book these descriptions are longer, but I think it is worth listing his points as insights for God to use to help us look at our hearts and actions.

• Love is being willing to have your life complicated by the by the needs and struggles of your husband or wife without impatience or anger. 
• Love is actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward your spouse, while looking for ways to encourage and praise.
• Love is the daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.
• Love is being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding, and being more committed to unity and love than you are to winning, accusing, or being right. 
• Love is a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer excuse or shift blame. 
• Love is a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to your husband or wife is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient. 
• Love is being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged but to look for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good, 
• Love is being a good student of your spouse, looking for his physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support him as he carries it, or encourage him along the way.
• Love means being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the problems that you face as a couple, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed on a strategy of response.
• Love is always being willing to ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested. 
• Love is recognizing the high value of trust in a marriage and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.
• Love is speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack your spouse's character or assault his or her intelligence. 
• Love is being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to co-op your spouse into giving you what you want or doing something your way. 
• Love is being unwilling to ask your spouse to be the source of your identity, meaning and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, while refusing to be the source of his or hers.
• Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a husband or a wife. 
• Love is a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your marriage. 
• Love is staying faithful to your commitment to treat your spouse with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when he or she doesn't seem to deserve it or is unwilling to reciprocate. 
• Love is never letting the failure of your spouse become a reason for changing the rules of the game.
• Love is the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of your marriage without asking anything in return or using your sacrifices to place your spouse in your debt.
• Love is being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm your marriage, hurt your husband or wife, or weaken the bond of trust between you.
• Love is refusing to be self-focused or demanding but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.
• Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God's protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.
• Love is a specific commitment of the heart to a specific person that causes you to give yourself to a specific lifestyle of care that requires you to be willing to make sacrifices that have that person's good in view. 

Let me also add, love is reading this list and thinking about your own heart rather than the shortcomings of your wife or husband. As Christians, this is the kind of genuine love that we need to seek by God's power and grace.

Evidence from Design in the Universe

Design points to a designer. If we see evidence of intelligent design in the universe, then the reasonable conclusion is that this evidence points to an intelligent designer. 

For example, if you see rocks scattered in a random pattern on a beach, you would not assume that someone arranged them.  If you saw that the rocks were arranged so that the smaller ones were closer to the water, and the bigger ones away from the water, you would assume that they had been washed to those places by the waves.  Again, this would not be an example of intelligent design.  However, if the rocks spelled out the words “Nate Archer was here” then you would conclude that someone must have arranged the rocks. 

When you see something that is complex that communicates specific information, you know it was caused by intelligent design.  Let me give you another example.  If you saw a rock formation that looked somewhat like a person, you would probably assume it was a coincidence.  However, if you saw a mountain that looked exactly like the heads of four U.S. presidents, you would never assume that it just happened by chance.  You would assume that someone designed it and made it that way on purpose. 

This isn't a "God of the gaps" argument; instead it is what is known as "inference to the best explanation." Even in the world's fallen state, I believe that when we look honestly at the world around us overwhelming design we see should push drive us to realize that there is something greater than an accident at work. 

We see amazing examples of design in the design of the universe and the planet earth as well as the design of life. There are great books that go into more detail about these examples of design, but here are a few samples about the design of the universe that impress me: 

The Design of the Universe

• The oxygen level on earth is 21%.  If the oxygen level was 25% fires would erupt spontaneously.  If the level was 15%, human beings would suffocate.
• According to a UCLA research physicist, if the gravitational constant in the universe was different by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001% our sun would not exist and neither would we.  To get an idea of how precise this is, imagine a radio dial that stretched across the entire universe.  This radio dial represents every possible value that the gravitational constant might have been.  If you moved the dial one inch to the right or one inch to the left, the universe would not be capable of sustaining life.   
• The fine-tuning of the cosmological constant has been called the single greatest problem facing physics and cosmology today.  The fine-tuning of the cosmological constant has been conservatively estimated to be at least one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion.  That is 10 followed by 53 zeros.  That would like throwing a dart at random from the far reaches of space and hitting a bull’s eyes on earth that is smaller than the size of an atom.
• Assuming the Big Bang, if the universe had expanded at a rate one millionth more slowly than it did, the universe would have stopped expanding and collapsed back in on itself before any stars had formed.  If the universe had expanded faster, no galaxies would have formed.
• There are many other factors that need to be just right for life to be possible, including the size of the earth, tilt of the earth, the distance of the earth from the sun, the right kind of star, the transparency of the atmosphere, the existence of the right kind of a moon, seismic activity, Jupiter, water vapor levels, and the list goes on.  Astrophysicist Hugh Ross has calculated that there are 122 of these variables in all (and they are constantly finding more.)  Dr. Ross has calculated that the odds of any planet in the universe having all of these correct variables would be one chance in the number 1 with 138 zeros after it.  This is incredible when you consider that the number of atoms in the entire universe is only 1 with 70 zeros after it!  (And remember, each zero makes the number ten times larger.)  The number of planets in the universe is only 1 with 22 zeros behind it.  Therefore, we would be absolutely shocked that there is even one single planet in the universe with all of the factors needed for life!

A hardcore skeptic might say that we shouldn’t be surprised at the odds because if life were impossible, we wouldn’t be here to notice. They often say that it would be like someone who was about to be killed by a firing squad but survived because all of the guns happened to jam.  The odds are bad for that to happen, but if it didn’t happen the man wouldn’t be around to notice. This is a poor example. If 19 guns jammed all at once, you would naturally assume that someone had sabotaged the guns… an act of design! If billions of guns jammed all at once, no one would assume that it was blind chance!

There are also massive amounts of evidence for design in the design of life. However, I will save that for another post. The design in the universe and the earth is enough to chew on for a while.

Consider these quotes: 

“Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact… I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.”  -Paul Davis, prolific science writer and former professor of theoretical physics at University of Adelaide, Australia

 “I do not believe that any scientist who examines the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce in stars.”  -Sir Fred Hoyle, eminent astrophysicist

Even though our world is fallen and marred because of sin, I don’t believe that you need to be a scientist to look out at the world and realize that it was designed by an intelligent creator.  I believe that this fits perfectly with that Paul wrote in Romans 1:18-21, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” In fact, the evidence of design in the universe and life is what finally caused the famous atheist philosopher and debater Antony Flew to renounce atheism in 2005.  

See also The Creator and the Cosmos by Hugh Ross, and The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Examples also drawn from I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, as well as The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel.  

Related:
The Universe: Caused, Self-Caused, or Uncaused?
Faith With Reasons
How God Lets Us Know He Exists
Just Like Earth?
Universe, Create Thyself

Israel in the Wilderness

Here are two messages I gave this summer. The first is on the crossing of the Red Sea and the second is Israel's failure at Kadesh-Barnea. Obviously I only own one shirt.

The Little Red Hen

This is a great parable:
Once upon a time there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?'
"Not I, " said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did.

The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.
"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last the time came to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.
"Then I will," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for the neighbors to see.
They all wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I can eat the five loaves myself."
"Excess profits," cried the cow.
"Capitalist leech," screamed the duck.
"I demand equal rights," yelled the goose.
And the pig just grunted.
And they painted "unfair" picket signs and marched round and around the little red hen shouting obscenities.

When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be greedy."
"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.
"Exactly," said the agent. "That's the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations productive workers must divide their products with the idle."

They all lived happily ever after. But the little red hen's neighbors wondered why she never again baked bread.

-a classic parable, adapted by Ronald Reagan

Note: For the very last paragraph I used a version I had read that was slightly abridged from Reagan's version, but in my opinion ends with more emphasis.

Finishing Monopoly Faster

My oldest son knows how to play Monopoly now and wants us to play it all the time. Monopoly is a classic but we all dread playing it because it can drag out to four or five hours.

So, when we play, I set the alarm on my iphone to go off in one hour. After the alarm sounds, all payments to other players are doubled. (Payments to and from the bank stay the same.) This allows us to bankrupt each other more quickly. Then we set the alarm again to give us another hour (or so) of play. When it sounds, whoever has the most cash is the winner.

There you have it. No deep message; just a tip on playing monopoly.