Pandemic Ponderings Ep. 2, Who's Showing Up At Your Place?

Hello, everyone, Pastor Tim again with the second episode of Pandemic Ponderings.

I have a question for you. Who's showing up at your place? I know what you're thinking.

Come on, Pastor Tim, what kind of a question is that? You know we're all stuck in our houses and no one is supposed to go anywhere.

Who could possibly show up at my place? Let me put it this way. Your children have been watching you since you were around the house during this pandemic.

Even if you're not home all day but still going to work regularly, you still can't do the things you normally do.

You don't go out to eat. You can't go shopping like you used to. There's no basketball or baseball to watch on television.

You can't attend the high school spring musical. You can't do much of what you did for entertainment.

All your nights are now free, but you're stuck at home. How are you handling this change?

Do your children see an angry person, a worrier consumed with anxiety, one who fights with her spouse more than she did before, maybe someone who's starting to despair?

In other words, who's showing up at your place? Consider with me a passage of Scripture.

It's Jeremiah 17, verses 5 -8. Let me read that for you.

The prophet Jeremiah draws a picture for us here, a picture of two trees.

One kind of a tree is a pitiful shrub in the desert wilderness in an uninhabited salt land.

The other is a lush, beautiful, fruit -bearing tree, the kind that sends out its roots into a flowing stream.

But the prophet isn't interested in teaching you botany. He wants you to see two kinds of people.

One kind of person is like a shrub in the desert, and the other is a fruitful tree.

Well, let's take a look at that vegetation, shall we? First, the scrubby, thorny, ugly little bush in the desert.

It represents the person who has no spiritual fruit to show. This kind of person is foolish and acts in ungodly ways.

You could describe his words, actions, and even his emotions as sinful. And what causes all this thorny, ugly behavior?

The root system, in a word, his heart. He's a scrubby bush because of what's going on in his heart.

He has chosen to rely on his own ingenuity and resources rather than trusting in the Lord. He believes lies rather than the truth.

He's driven by what he wants, what he desires rather than what God says he should want or need.

You see, the anxiety, the anger, the despondency, the irritability, the conflicts you've exhibited since this pandemic descended has been caused by your straying heart, not by the chaos and confusion and loss of freedom you've experienced.

You believe the lie that unless you get back to work soon, you'll be ruined. Your kids will go hungry.

You'll be left with nothing. Rather than the truth that your Heavenly Father knows what you need, loves to take care of you, and will meet your needs.

You want what you had before, the freedom to go places and do things that you love, thinking that you cannot flourish unless such freedom is yours, forgetting that you should be and can be content with freedom or without it.

You've figured out a foolproof way to keep your business open as essential, only to be shut down by the health department with the resulting rage consuming you.

You're the man who trusts in man, whose heart turns away from the Lord, rather than trusting the

Lord to do what's best for you. In the end, you're a thornbush because you just don't believe

God's promise that in the midst of affliction, for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

Bottom line, don't blame COVID -19 for your anger or anxiety or despair.

Look to your straying, rebellious, faithless heart. Yet there is hope for you.

Look at the tree that Jeremiah describes for us here. You can be a lush, green, beautiful fruit tree.

This is a person who is godly and wise, who exhibits the fruit of godly behavior, words, and emotions.

And why is that? Again, because of the root system, because of his heart.

He is one who trusts in the Lord, who makes the Lord his trust. He believes what

God says about himself, that he is a loving father, intent on accomplishing only good for his children.

This person puts to death the idea that what he had before is necessary for happiness and begins to put on the idea that God is enough for him, that even if all his freedom was gone, if he has to hole up in his apartment for another two months, nothing can stop him from finding satisfaction in his

God. He can even trust God with his business. Whether it fails or flourishes,

God will show himself to be a kind, gracious, loving father.

Look again at the text. What is the condition in which you find that tree?

What? Growing green and fruitful in a dry and hot environment. It is essentially in the same kind of environment as that scrubby thorn bush.

The heat is on, but the tree remains green and fruitful. We need to learn the lesson.

Ungodly behavior, words, and emotions do not depend on our circumstances. Godly behavior, words, and emotions do not depend on our circumstances.

If that grumpy, anxious, hard -to -live -with guy has shown up at your place, he can't blame the virus and all that it brought with it.

He needs to look to his heart. You might ask, but we are experiencing the severity of something unknown to us in our entire lifetime.

Some people say that our country will never be the same again. Do we just brush it off as inconsequential?

No, not at all. These times are more difficult and more severe than anything we have faced or anything we could have imagined.

But remember, trials and hardships, the heat of life can certainly tempt you, influence you, provoke you, limit you, even discourage you, but they cannot determine you.

God makes that clear to us. When the thorn branches start popping out, don't look to your circumstances, look to your heart.

How can you change? Some of you are asking, I don't like who showed up, but what can

I do about it? According to this text, you must become the man who trusts

God. How do you trust God in the midst of this pandemic? The root system of your heart must tap into the stream of gospel realities.

If you are in Christ, that is, united to him by faith, then he has everything you need.

He has redeemed you from the tyranny of sin and purchased you for his father by his death.

God is now your father, not your judge. Everything that comes your way, from those recently imposed restrictions to the virus itself, comes from the loving hand of your gracious, generous father.

He intends to use every event, every person, every trial, even the confusion of these times, to conform you to the image of his dear son,

Jesus. He brings hard times in order for you to learn the happiness of holiness.

When such streams of gospel truth begin to nourish your heart, you will begin to trust

God and you will become a fruitful tree. A shrub or a tree?