How to Live Above the Circumstances

Back in a rough patch in my young adult years, an older man asked how I was doing. I said, “Oh, okay I guess. Under the circumstances.”

He smiled and asked, “What in the world are you doing under there?”

His bluntness caught me by surprise at first, but he was right. We don’t have to live under the circumstances.

What happens to your faith when life doesn’t go the way you planned?

The prophet Habakkuk ministered to God’s people as the Babylonian invasion loomed. The foreign power was about to sweep in and demolish the city and destroy the temple. Still, Habakkuk refused to live under the circumstances. He declared (3:17-19),

Though the fig tree does not bud

    and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

    and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

    and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

    he enables me to tread on the heights.

He was no Pollyanna who just wanted to pretend that all was sweetness and light. And yet he refused to let his attitude rise or fall based on the circumstances. He said, “I will rejoice… I will be joyful.”

Those aren’t the words you expect to find at the end of his litany of disasters. So, how could he decide to be joyful? Notice the source of his joy: “I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Of all John Piper’s sermons and books, this is his most memorable line: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Habakkuk was satisfied in God, and so even the wreckage of his life became a stage on which he could glorify God.

Let’s study more about this on Sunday. Join us at 10am on campus or online!

Tom

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Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermonsare available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

How to Be More Resilient

When hardship comes, why do some people endure while others collapse?

In one widely reported study, psychologists monitored how 2,000 adults handled hardship. At the start of the study, the participants were asked to report all the upsetting life events they had experienced before entering the study. Things like divorce, the death of a friend or parent, a serious illness, living through a natural disaster, and so on. They were then told to report on how they were handling any new trials that arose during the study.

The two groups that had the hardest time coping in their current struggles were those who had faced a lot of past traumas and those who had faced none. Psychologists found that those with no previous traumatic experiences tended to catastrophize their current situations exactly like those who had experienced a lot of hardship. To “catastrophize” is to imagine that one’s current pain will end up unbearable and overwhelming.

Too many traumas can weaken your resilience, and too few won’t build any resilience at all. As you go through crisis times, you learn coping skills and you identify helpful resources. What results is a confidence that you can endure new hardships.

When Jeremiah was a young prophet, he complained to God about all the opposition he was facing. God replied, “Jerry, you ain’t seen nothing yet!” Okay, that’s the TGV, the Tom Goodman Version. Here’s Jeremiah 12:5 in the NIV:

“If you have raced with men on foot

and they have worn you out,

how can you compete with horses?” 

It’s one of my favorite verses. We can apply it in two ways.

On the one hand, this verse means that you must face your current tough times with faith now because there are tougher times coming.

On the other hand, some of you are already in the greatest trial of your life. In that case, let this verse encourage you! You can face your current tough times with faith now because of all that God has already brought you through.

Let’s study more about this on Sunday. Join us at 10am on campus or online!Let’s study more about this on Sunday. Join us at 10am on campus or online!

Tom

Image Credit

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Don’t Just Do It

American missionary Benjamin Weir was captured by Shiite Muslims and held for 16 months. He faced loneliness, imprisonment, and the constant threat of execution.

On his first terrifying night of captivity, he was left alone in the room of a private home. He scanned the space and let his imagination bring him closer to God.

An electric wire hung down from the ceiling, exposing 3 naked wires where a light bulb and socket had been removed. And he thought about the triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—reaching a hand toward him, reminding him, “You’re alive. You’re mine. I’ve made you and called you into being for a divine purpose.”

He began to count the horizontal slats on the French doors. There were 120. What could those pieces of wood stand for—so many of them? “That’s it!” he thought, “So many. A crowd. Like the book of Hebrews tells us: I have a great cloud of witnesses, past and present, who testify to the faithfulness of God.”

He noticed a game bird on a shelf in one corner of the room, probably shot and stuffed by a former occupant of the room. A gray bird, like a dove. And he thought, “A dove! Like Noah’s bird, the one released from the window of the ark! It went searching and brought back a bit of greenery, a sign of life, a new beginning, hope in the chaos!”

What was he doing? He was practicing God’s instruction in Psalm 46— “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s the scripture passage we’ll study this Sunday at Hillcrest.

Be still. Literally the Hebrew could be translated, “Let your hands hang down.” In a crisis, our first response is to say to ourselves and others, “Don’t just stand there —do something!” But there are times when God himself advises us: “Don’t just do something — stand there!”

Whatever you’re facing today, get still enough to meditate over the character and promises of God. Knees don’t knock when we kneel on them!

Tom

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Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Here's to the Plodders

Plodding is a superpower. The kingdom of God doesn’t advance through celebrities doing spectacular things on big stages. Instead, it advances through average people just doing what needs to be done day-in and day-out.

They’ll never make a Marvel movie about people like this, but they have a superpower.

It takes a few years of living before we realize this. We start out in adulthood desperate to be extraordinary. Lore Ferguson Wilbert wrote, “I am of the ‘Don’t waste your life!’ generation, a generation of young people in the church who believed their greatest call was to not settle for mediocrity in their Christian life….Passion was the proof of salvation, zeal was the evidence of our faith, ‘Send me!’ was our mantra, and ‘world changers’ was our identity. We all wanted to be used by God, but none of us wanted to fold up the chairs afterward.”

We need more plodders. People like Melkijah.

Who?

Exactly.

When the Israelites returned from Babylonian exile, their first task was to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. The third chapter of Nehemiah is simply a list of men who each rebuilt their little part of that wall. The sections of the wall are described by the gates they adjoin. So, you have one man celebrated for rebuilding the section at the Sheep Gate, and another man honored for rebuilding the section at the Fish Gate, and so on.

As we read through the list, we get to Melkijah’s contribution. “The Dung Gate was repaired by Malkijah” (verse 14).

Would you want to be forever remembered as the Dung Gate Guy?

But if Malkijah had not stepped up to rebuild that little part of the wall, even if every other part had been completed, the whole city would have remained vulnerable.

The thing I learn from Malkijah is to ask, “Where is my bit of wall I’m responsible for? How can I do my little part so that together with everyone else the kingdom of God advances?”

Here’s to the plodders. May our tribe increase!

Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Your Work Matters to God

Take a moment to think about all the people God employed to get a bowl of cereal in front of you this morning.

He used farmers to plant and cultivate. 

He used suppliers at farm equipment companies, and bankers who arranged the financing for these businesses. 

He used scientists who checked the food for purity. 

He used plant operators who processed the grain into crispy flakes. 

He used manufacturers of the trucks that get the boxed-up cereal to market, and the truck drivers, and the truck stop operators who make their routes possible. 

He used the engineers who designed the highway, and the laborers who laid down all those miles of road work. 

He even used the humble pallet makers who hammered together sturdy wood strips to make it easier for the forklift drivers (whom God also used) to unload the boxes of cereal at the delivery dock of your grocery store. And then there’s the person who stocked the shelves and the clerk who scanned your selection at check out.

God used a lot of people to get breakfast to your table this morning.

Your work, too, is a vital part of this vast, complex system God directs to meet the needs of this world. Because of that, God is as interested in the quality of your work as he is the quality of your prayers. In 1 Thessalonians 4:10-11 (LB) Paul wrote, “This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business and doing your own work.”

Paul combined two words that don’t seem to go together.

Ambition. Quiet.

“Be driven by this passion,” he said. What passion? “To live a quiet life of ordinary self-sustaining labor.”

Your work matters to God. If you’re employed, thank him for it and do your job well as part of your obedience to God. It’s part of the Still Life we’re talking about on Sundays at Hillcrest. See you at 10am!

--Tom

(The illustration about breakfast cereal comes from a book by Doug Sherman and William Hendricks called Your Work Matters to God.)

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Still Life

The word “still” describes someone who is calm. They are not nervously talking or anxiously wringing their hands. They are physically still.

The word “still” describes someone who is constant. No matter how long you’ve known them, they are still the same.

The word “still” describes someone who is controlled. When trouble comes, they don’t run away. They stand still.

But is “still” a good word to describe you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this word. God commanded us to “be still” in our crisis and trust him (Psalm 46:10). God spoke to the burned-out prophet Elijah in a “still, small voice” (1 Kings 19). The Apostle Paul told us to be ambitious to lead a quiet life (1 Thessalonians 4:11).

We love the big and the flashy these days. Consider a couple of examples.

We like to read books that tell us we ought to expect astonishing things when we pray. We think, Just ask God to give us this day our daily bread? How dull.

We go to conferences that tell us we’re second-class disciples unless we’ve quit our jobs to start a third-world orphanage. We think, Just be a working stiff who faithfully raises my kids and loves my spouse and serves in my church? How boring.

Really, I don’t want to belittle the longing for a spectacular life. I mean, I sometimes need the reminders to pray boldly and to live boldly.

But still.

In the calls to expect the extraordinary, I’m afraid God’s people are forgetting the ordinary. We’re called to be faithful, stubbornly obedient, and to look for God to show up in the routines of daily living.

So, starting this Sunday, we’re going to look at the still life. Across the next several weeks we’re going to examine God’s commands to be still, to stand faithful, and to attend to the too-often dull work of life. We’ll start with burned-out Elijah in 1 Kings 19. He needed the reminder that God doesn’t always work in the big flashy ways Elijah expected. Read 1 Kings 19:1-18, and join us at 10.

--Tom

 Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

The Wonder of Thunder

Bob and Pat Moulder were listening to the rain pelt the roof of their Mississippi house early Sunday morning when the phone rang. It was their son, David, calling from South Korea. He was a helicopter pilot stationed along the demilitarized zone. As they talked, a booming clap of thunder shook the windows.

David asked, “What was that? It sounded like an explosion.”

“No, just thunder,” said his mother. “It’s been raining here all week.”

There was a long pause. “David, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I was thinking about what Mom said. ‘Just thunder.’ Other than the two of you, know what I miss the most? Thunder. We have rain, wind, snow and some violent storms, but it never thunders. I miss the thunder.”

When the Moulders got off the phone with their homesick son, Bob collected his old-fashioned tape recorder, a large golf umbrella and a lawn chair and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Pat asked.

“I’m going to record our son some thunder.”

“Bob, the neighbors will think you’re crazy.”

“David won’t,” he said, and went outside.

For the next 30 minutes Bob Moulder sat under his umbrella in the driving rain and flickering lightning. With the tape player rolling, he recorded what he later described as “half an hour of the finest Mississippi thunder a lonesome man could ever want to hear.” The next day he mailed the tape to David with a single note: “A special gift.”

In Psalm 29, we see another David who was fond of thunder. He was fond of it because it reminded him of the awesome power of God—power God used on David’s behalf.

Charles Spurgeon said that thunder is “the church bell of the universe ringing kings and angels, and all the sons of earth to their devotions.”

Meditate a moment on a thunderstorm, and like David you will say, “For my need there’s more power available from God that can be found in a hurricane!” This Sunday at 10 we’ll let Psalm 29 remind us of the wonder of thunder. Join us!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Open Your Survival Kit

In the film Cast Away, Tom Hanks played the lone survivor of a FedEx jet crash marooned on a deserted island in the south Pacific. A few packages from the jet washed up on the shore with the castaway, and he opened them in hopes of finding something that would help him survive. When he came to the last package, though, he chose to keep it intact. Envisioning the act of delivering that package to its owner was what kept him going. In fact, the film ended with the delivered castaway delivering that package to its recipient five years later.

In a FedEx commercial that spoofed the movie, a once-marooned FedEx employee finally delivered a package he had protected for so long. Curiosity got the best of him and he asked what was in the package he had kept all those years on the deserted island.

She opened it and showed him the contents. “Oh, nothing really,” she said. “Just a satellite phone, GPS locator, a fishing rod, water purifier, and some seeds.”

No doubt those things would have come in handy for a man stranded on a deserted island!

The Bible is also filled with good things. When was the last time you opened it?

In the first six verses of Psalm 19, King David reflected on how the sky above him revealed the reality of God. But that took his thoughts to something that revealed God even better: God’s Word. In verses 7-11, he listed seven compliments of the Bible: perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, firm, and righteous. In addition, he complements the compliments with seven benefits of God’s word: refreshing, making wise, giving joy, giving light, enduring forever, warning and rewarding.

Your Bible is a survival kit for living in a hard world. Open it!

Let’s go deeper into Psalm 19. Join us at 10am this Sunday!

(This week’s devotional was adapted from my devotional guide, Winning Ways. You can pick up a copy for free during this Sunday’s worship service, or order it online here.)

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

What the Sky Wants to Say to Those Who Will Listen

“Something happened to these kids. They learned much more and grew much more.”

That was the conclusion of one Harvard researcher after studying kids who loved sky gazing. If that’s true, what are we missing if we just go through life with no real regard for the vast canopy above us?

The researchers were investigating an educational program called “For Spacious Skies.” Boston newscaster Jack Borden started the project after an epiphany.

“I had never really noticed the sky before,” he said, recalling a memorable hike. “But that day its beauty, majesty and fragility just overpowered me.”

He wrote a 32-page booklet for schoolteachers, sketching out ways that the sky could stimulate learning. When Harvard educators evaluated the impact of the For Spacious Skies program, they concluded that artistic, musical, and literary skills improved much faster for sky gazers than others.

King David was a sky gazer, and in his poetry he reflected on what he learned while staring upward.

In Psalm 8, it was the night sky that caused him to marvel at how small he was in the universe and yet how big he was in the priorities of God.

In Psalm 19, it was the day sky that prompted praise for the bright revelation of God to the whole earth.

In Psalm 29, it was the stormy sky that made David gasp in wonder at God’s power.

Across the next three Sundays, we’re going to let the beloved poet teach us how to be sky gazers. Our series is called “Sky Lines: What the Sky Wants to Say to Those Who Will Listen.”

When I was in high school, I briefly considered a career in meteorology. (Maybe I just wanted a job where I could be wrong fifty percent of the time and still get paid.) This Bible study takes me back to my early fascination with the sky. It’s a fascination we should never grow out of. Join us for this study each Sunday at 10!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Don’t Stay Mothballed

Some naval ships make up a fleet nicknamed the “Mothball Navy.” The ships are decommissioned from active service, but tax dollars still must go to their upkeep.

They’re like some Christians who have decided to “decommission” themselves. These believers are harbored in a church where they require ongoing maintenance even though they aren’t serving the cause.

If you’ve let that happen to you, I’ve got good news: God wants to reactivate you.

In his book, Fifty Ships That Saved the World, Philip Goodhart wrote about the American destroyers from the Mothball Navy that were recommissioned at the start of the Second World War. They served as escorts protecting merchant ships against German U-boats. Goodhart wrote that they “gave invaluable service at a time of really desperate need.”

Ships from the Mothball Navy have been reactivated in every conflict in the modern era: the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the wars in the Middle East. Now that the Navy wants to increase their active fleet from 283 ships to 355, there’s new discussion about reactivating certain ships.

“You’re never gone until they actually tow you away for scrap,” naval strategist Stephen Wills told the miliary journal, Task & Purpose. “Even if you’re mothballed, you might come back.”

He was speaking about decommissioned ships, but he could have been speaking about Christians who have taken themselves out of God’s service. You can come back.

What service might God be calling you to? This Sunday would be a good time to find out. After our 10am service, you can learn about the ministries we run and the ministries we support by walking through our Ministry Fair. In our gym you’ll find booths promoting the programs of our own church. In addition, you’ll meet representatives from 18 organizations that use our building or receive support from our missions budget. Find out how we partner to support international missions, disaster relief, poverty aid, pregnancy care, and so much more!

It will be a great way to get unmoored from the Mothball Navy and return to serving in God’s kingdom again!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

The End That Is Not the End

“To be a truly happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.”

That’s the pitch for a phone app called “WeCroak.” When Bianca Bosker saw the ad for the app, she got curious. She paid the 99 cents and downloaded it just to check it out.

Five times a day she began to get a notification: “Don’t forget, you are going to die.” The reminders popped up on her phone randomly and unexpectedly.

Just like death.

By the fourth week with the app, she said she noticed her perspective on life changing. For example, nervous before a speech, her phone pinged. She looked down at the screen and the notification said, “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.” And she thought, What’s a little public speaking next to the terrifying finality of my inevitable demise? Or, when she was at a friend’s wedding but distracted by a work deadline, she got the notification: “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.” She decided to quit worrying about the deadline and enjoy the party. Often the WeCroak notice interrupted her while she was aimlessly scrolling through social media, which would provoke her to get engaged in something more meaningful.

The last thing Jesus said to Simon Peter in the Gospel of John was how he was going to die. But it was the risen Christ who told him this. Jesus was on the other side of that experience himself, victoriously alive! Thus, our Lord’s reminder of our limited lives has a different quality to it when compared to other wisdom teachers. Every other wisdom tradition says you can live a more meaningful life by considering death. But Jesus says you can live a more meaningful life by considering eternity.

Peter knew his earthly life would have a bitter end and then he would rise to a forever joy with the Lord who loved him. That knowledge changed the way Peter made his decisions, chose his priorities, and faced his hardships.

Read this last conversation Jesus had with Simon Peter in John 21:18-25 and let it rearrange your priorities, too! We’ll study this passage at Hillcrest this Sunday at 10am.

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Beauty in Your Brokenness

Have you ever heard of Kintsugi bowls? In fifteenth-century Japan, a family wouldn’t throw out precious pottery when it was broken. They would bring the pieces to an artisan trained to put the family heirloom back together with gold-dusted lacquer. The Japanese word “Kintsugi” means “golden joinery.”

David Brooks wrote about the ancient bowls: “They look like they have golden veins running through them, making them more beautiful and more valuable than they were in their original condition. There’s a dimension of depth to them. You sense the original life they had, the rupture, and then the way they were so beautifully healed. And of course they stand as a metaphor for the people, families, and societies we all know who have endured their own ruptures and come back beautiful, vulnerable, and whole in their broken places.”

Then Brooks added, “I don’t know about you, but I feel a great hunger right now for timeless pieces like these.”

The night before the cross, Jesus predicted he would soon be arrested and all the apostles would abandon him. Simon boasted that he never would, but he did. Finding himself with the enemies of Jesus by a charcoal fire (John 18:18), Simon had three opportunities to take his stand for Jesus. On each occasion, Simon denied his association with him.

After the resurrection, Simon sat with the risen Christ by another charcoal fire (John 21:9). And there Jesus cancelled out Peter’s three denials by giving him a chance to make three new affirmations of his love for Jesus.

Years later, in 1 Peter 5:10 (CSB), the Big Fisherman wrote, “The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you….” How could Peter assure us of that? Because he had experienced it himself.  

Jesus is the true and greater Kintsugi master. He does not discard broken disciples. He repairs us in a way that even our once-fractured places become beautiful.

Read about Simon Peter’s restoration in John 21:1-17 and let it give you hope that Jesus wants to restore you, too! We’ll study this passage at Hillcrest this Sunday at 10am!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

When an Eeyore Meets Jesus

Someone said an optimist believes this is the best of all possible worlds while a pessimist fears this is true.

The Apostle Thomas was a pessimist. In the three places he speaks in the Gospel of John, he comes across as morose and resigned (John 11:16; John 14:5; John 20:24-25).

Thomas was a Christian Eeyore.

Remember him? In the Winnie the Pooh stories, he was the gray donkey with drooping ears and sad eyes and a tail that would often come off because it was held on by a thumbtack. Every other character looked on life with wonder and expectation and trust, but not Eeyore. There’s a scene in The House at Pooh Corner where Eeyore knocks at Christopher Robin’s door:

“Hallo, Eeyore,” said Christopher Robin, as he opened the door and came out. “How are you?”

“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.

“So it is.”

“And freezing.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”

Sounds like Thomas, doesn’t he?

But Thomas met Jesus gloriously alive a week after Jesus had been killed. “Stop doubting,” Jesus said to his disconsolate disciple, “Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27). His gloom melted away, and Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

With his declaration at the end of the Gospel of John, we return full circle to the assertion that opens the book: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… [and] the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14).

It’s remarkable that the man who expressed the deepest doubts of anyone else in the Gospel of John ended up expressing the highest claim about Jesus of anyone else in the Gospel. How does that give you hope for your own doubting? How does that give you hope for the doubters you know and love?

Read about the man everyone calls “Doubting Thomas” in John 20:24-31, and then study the passage with us this Sunday at 10am!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Living the Sent Life

You can divide Christians into three types.

Some are fearful of what the world thinks of their faith. Some are indifferent to whether the world even knows about their faith. But some live the sent life.

The story of the apostles’ first meeting with the risen Lord illustrates this.

After Mary Magdalene met Jesus gloriously alive, she went and told the apostles, “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:18.) And yet, that evening the disciples were in a house “with the doors locked for fear” (John 20:19). Why? The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Mary and other women told the apostles of their encounter with Jesus, “they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11). And so, they still behaved as if their Lord was dead and their great cause had failed.

Suddenly, they found the risen Christ in their midst, and “the disciples were overjoyed” (John 20:20). But notice: They’re enjoying wonderful fellowship with Jesus while still behind their locked door. And so, Jesus said to them, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

In other words, Jesus was saying, “I don’t want you so wrapped up in fear that you hide from the world, but neither do I want you so focused on your wonderful experiences with me that you ignore the world. I am sending you out to tell others this good news.”

In verse 19, they were fearful of the world.

In verse 20, they were indifferent to the world.

In verse 21, they were sent to the world.

Where do you fall on that spectrum?

Jesus has put us under orders to represent him to others. The sense of being sent should influence every action we take, every decision we make, every dollar we spend, and every circumstance we face.

Read about how the disciples were transformed into a sent people in John 20:19-23. This is the life Jesus has called us to! Study these words with us this Sunday at 10am!

--Tom

Photo Credit

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

He Calls Us By Name

“You used my real name,” the inmate said, and his eyes welled up with tears.

I was at a 3-day retreat at a prison where men were incarcerated for long sentences. We were assigned to tables where we’d be each other’s “family” for the entire program. As we all introduced ourselves to each other, the tattooed gang leader next to me said, “In here they call me—” and he gave his formal name and inmate number. “But on the outside I was known as Joe Angel.”

We enjoyed three days of music and gospel-centered lessons and food and laughter. Toward the end of the program, one of the last activities was to give the inmates handwritten notes and leave them alone to read them. When we were together again, Joe Angel told me what impressed him most about my note was that I used his preferred name in the letter. It was a name he once heard from people who were fond of him, and he was glad someone was addressing him that way again.

Early on a Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene heard her own name spoken in fondness. She had been weeping because she found the tomb of Jesus empty. Three days earlier, she had watched him die a horrible death, and now it appeared someone had carried away his body. But in the midst of her agonized sobs, she heard her own name spoken by a familiar voice.

“Mary.”

She turned around, and Jesus stood before her gloriously alive.

The Lord we read about in the Bible wants to meet with us. How is this possible? Because Jesus is alive, just as Mary discovered. So, we can anticipate moments when he calls us by name into meetings that restore our hope and strength.

Read about Mary’s encounter with the risen Lord in John 20:11-18, and then let’s pray for meetings like that to take place. We need them, and those we love need them. Study these words with us this Sunday at 10am!

--Tom

Photo Credit

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

How Hope Dawns

“It dawned on me.”

We use that phrase when describing a realization that comes to us. We’ll say, “I got all the way home before it dawned on me that I left the grocery store without buying milk.”

The profound truth of the resurrection dawned on the Apostle John. In John 20, he said it was still dark on the Sunday morning that Mary Magdalene left her home to keep vigil at the tomb of Jesus. Finding the stone rolled away, she ran to tell Peter and John someone had taken the body. They, in turn, ran to the tomb. After Peter investigated, he was left “wondering to himself what had happened” (Luke 24:12). In other words, he could only conclude what didn’t happen: The grave had not been robbed. For John, however, he concluded what did happen: Jesus had been gloriously resurrected.

This dawning realization is heightened by the verbs John used. In our English translations, Mary “saw” (verse 1), and Peter “saw” (verse 6), and John “saw” (verse 8). But John used three different Greek words to describe the act of seeing.

For Mary, John used a form of the word blepo. This was often the word Greek speakers used to describe the physical act of seeing.

For Peter, he used a form of the word theoreo. It’s where we get our English word “theory.” This was often the word Greek speakers used to describe the process of inspection and investigation.

For John himself, he used a form of the word eido. It’s where we get our English word “idea.” This was often the word Greek speakers used to describe the act of putting the evidence together to draw a conclusion.

This is how hope dawns. In the darkness of despair, we “see” the obvious stark facts of our situation and draw the wrong conclusion that there’s no hope. Then we begin to “see” things that make us doubt our pessimism. Finally, we “see” what restores our hope.

Do you need hope to dawn on you? Read John 20:1-10, and then come and study these words with us this Sunday!

--Tom

Photo Credit

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

The Love Story of the Cross

Do you know any good romance novels involving crucifixion?

According to Martin Hengel, there used to be.

In his book, Crucifixion, the New Testament expert surveyed the use of the cross as a penalty in the Graeco-Roman world. Part of the overview included reviewing the popular Roman literature in the time Christianity began. Reading these novels evokes the horror that most people felt about the threat of crucifixion.

“Crucifixion of the hero or heroine is part of their stock in trade,” Hengel says of the romances. He gives some examples:

In the Babyloniaca written by the Syrian Iamblichus, the hero is twice overtaken by this fearful punishment, but on both occasions he is taken down from the cross and freed.

Again:

Habrocomes, the chief figure in the romance by Xenophon of Ephesus... is first tortured almost to death and later threatened with crucifixion. Even his beloved, Anthea, is in danger of being crucified after she has killed a robber in self-defense.

However, he says, readers would have never accepted a plot where the hero actually endured crucifixion:

Heroes cannot on any account be allowed to suffer such a painful and shameful death -- this can only befall evil-doers.... The hero of the romance is saved at the last moment, just before he is to be nailed to the cross.

Of course, in the Bible’s love story, the hero is not saved from the cross. Instead, he suffers and dies.

You do know that the crucifixion of Jesus is a love story, right? The Bible says Jesus died out of his love for us, which provokes a response of love for him. Immediately after Jesus died, the Apostle John tells us that two men buried him as if he were a noble member of their own family. They risked everything to do so, because they were prominent men in the Jewish community,. But they did it out of love for Jesus.

Yes, the story of the cross is a love story. Let’s look at that love story this Sunday. See you at 10am!

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Taking Care of Jesus's Mother

If Jesus asked you to take care of his own mother, would you? Would you do it well?

As his life ebbed away on the cross, Jesus put his mother into the care of the Apostle John. “Here is your son,” he told her, referring to John. And to John he said, “Here is your mother” (John 19:25-27).

 Jesus expects that very thing of all of us today. How so?

There’s a scene in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus was teaching in a house. The crowd packed inside so that his mother and brothers couldn’t get to him. When someone told him that his family was standing outside and wanted to see him, he pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:49-50).

Jesus said to Mary and John, “Take care of each other.” Likewise, Jesus calls your attention to your fellow disciples and says, “Here is my brother and sister and mother. You’re in a new family now. Take care of each other.”

We must learn to see our family of fellow believers as the most significant of all our relationships. Beyond blood or marriage or politics or nationality, our most significant relationships are with those who love Jesus like we do. And that means we need to spend time with each other, and include each other in our lives, and invite each other into our houses, and sacrifice time and money to meet each other’s needs.

When I attended church services as a teen, at one point in every service we were told to greet the people around us. And then we sang a chorus:

I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God

I’ve been washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod

For I’m part of the family, the family of God.

Do you feel that same gladness to be part of the family of God?

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

How to Shed Your Shame

Brené Brown, has focused her academic research on what shame does to us. She defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging.”

It’s related to guilt, but different. Guilt is a focus on behavior, but shame is a focus on self. Guilt says, “I did something bad,” but shame says, “I am bad.”

Shame can arise from our own sins and moral failures, but it can also arise from sins and wrongs done against us. For example, survivors of childhood sexual abuse can tell you they feel shame even though they didn’t cause the abuse. Shame is the feeling that you’re worthless, dirty, contaminated, unlovable.

Such feelings lead to a host of pathologies. Brown says, “Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders.”

So, if we could do something with our shame, we could start solving a lot of other things associated with it.

The cross is the place to begin. We see deep shame there. The Romans used crucifixion to highlight a condemned man’s weakness and failure. In John 19:16-24, a mocking sign was posted above Jesus, fellow failures hung beside Jesus, and beneath Jesus indifferent soldiers divided his meager possessions. Our Beloved was pinned to the cross—naked, exposed, with literally nothing left to call his own.

But Hebrews 12:2 celebrates Jesus by saying, “Jesus… endured the cross, scorning its shame.”

Jesus bore the shame to free you from yours.

In Isaiah 54:4-5, God says:

Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.

    Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.

You will forget the shame of your youth….

What is the basis of this assurance? God explains:

For your Maker is your husband—

    the Lord Almighty is his name—

the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer….

When you live in that reality, you’ll be able to shed your shame. Read John 19:16-24 then study the passage with us this weekend. We’ll begin our worship service online and on campus at 10am.

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.

Facing Your Pontius Pilate

Have you met your Pontius Pilate yet? 

For two thousand years Pilate has been remembered for failing his most important test of character. He knew that executing an innocent man would be unjust, but he also knew that refusing to execute Jesus would cause such a ruckus in Judea that Caesar would fire him. In the end, Pilate chose what was best for Pilate.

I wrote about his role in Jesus’ death for Lifeway’s Holy Land Illustrated Bible. You can find the article by clicking here, and you buy the study Bible by clicking here. But for today’s edition of Winning Ways, I want you to think about what you will do when you face your own Pontius Pilate.

After all, Jesus once said, “The servant is not above his master.” And so, if Jesus suffered injustice, don’t be surprised if some day you do, too. You might find your job or your reputation or your future entirely in the hands of one person who opts to throw you under the bus.

And yet, just as Jesus’s death resulted in glorious redemption for those who believe in him, I believe God can also do something redemptive when we face injustice. If God used something as tragic and as ugly as the death of his own son to accomplish something as beautiful as salvation for the world, God can do something good with the tragic and ugly things that happen in your life. In Romans 8:28, Paul wrote, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him….” When you face your Pontius Pilate, you can endure the sting of injustice with grace and dignity if you keep that promise in mind. God can use your mistreatment in some beautiful way in his plan for this world. 

Read about the trial of Jesus before Pilate, and then study the passage with us this weekend. We’ll begin our worship service online and on campus at 10am.

--Tom

Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.