Chuck Larsen

Time 2020-12-21 03:03:25

Web Name: Chuck Larsen

WebSite: http://chucklarsen.com

ID:141022

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Chuck,Larsen,

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I'm from Omaha. Graduated from Holy Name in 1965. Spent 27 years in the Navy, came to Christ at age 32. Earned ThB (Bachelor of Theology) from William Tyndale & ThM (Master of Theology) and Doctorate of Ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary. And finally earned a ThD (Doctor of Theology) from Newburgh Theological Seminary. I served as solo pastor of Hillside Bible Chapel in Farmington Hills, Michigan for 4 years and then 25 years as senior pastor of Country Bible Church in Blair, Nebraska. I retired on my 70th Birthday on January 15, 2017. One of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever received came early in December of 1970. It was our son Chuck! We were in Greenville, South Carolina with my family in Omaha and Kathy’s family in California. It was just the two of us for over a year. But God gave us a great present on our second Christmas together. It made our Christmas 1970 very special. It was a difficult adjustment. We lived in a one bedroom duplex and the baby slept in a basinet in the living room most of the time at nights, then in the middle of our double bed during the daytime. Our landlord really fell in love with the baby, but Chuckie (as we called him) didn’t care too much for her. He’d scream bloody murder when she tried to hold him. Marie would wrestle with him for a few minutes and then hand him back to Kathy. We thought it was funny, but she didn’t.He was the best Christmas present I ever received, or the greatest gift, because he taught Kathy and I how to love.  He was helpless, messy, hungry, and demanding at times, but that never stopped our love for him. In 1 Corinthians Paul gave an expose on the Spiritual gifts but he concluded with “Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is Love.” I’ve always found it interesting how Paul put “love” amidst his discussion on the Gifts of the Spirit. Love is the greatest gift we can give or ever receive. During the days when our first son was born, Love was the only thing we really had to give, but it was more than enough. I was reminded of that on my 50th wedding anniversary last year when Kathy gave me a card. She said I’ve given her many things over the years but the “greatest and most treasured of all is your love!” And nothing can be truer than this! The greatest gift anyone can ever give or receive is the gift of love.Jesus is God’s perfect expression of His love for us. It’s the greatest gift of all. My prayer for myself and all is that His great gift will be our focus this year! And that all our gifts, tied and wrapped, will also be accompanied by love. John 3:16 tells us that God so loved that he “gave….” Then in John 15:13 we read, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Christmas is all about the perfect gift from the perfect giver of all good gifts. Richard Hatch was the winner of the first Survivor game show back in 2000. I never liked the guy very much and after he won, he started doing the talk show circuit. He was on all the big ones: Letterman, Leno, etc. He was arrogant and obnoxious (I guess it takes one to know one!) The most memorable thing about him is what he said that always makes me think about the Christmas tradition of giving. He said, “selfishness is a virtue.” He said, “For example, if you give somebody a gift, it’s because you want that good feeling that comes to you from the act of making someone you care about happy.”Well, that’s the truth in many ways. I remember shopping as a little boy for my mother and father and wanting to get them something that they would like. Dad always got excited over the handkerchiefs and the socks. Mom loved the cheap perfume. Well, they sure acted like it. It was interesting that as I look back, I realize that there sure wasn’t much for them to get excited about at Christmas time but they sure did act like it. I didn’t fully understand it until I had my own kids and got the joy of giving to them and acting like the pencil drawing of a tree was the greatest gift I could have ever received.  It really does feel good to give to those we love! We truly do have a selfish motive in our giving. We love to make those we love happy and we usually go to some expense to make that happen.But what if the one you loved most was what you had to give away? Do you see any selfish motives in that? God so loved the world that He gave his “only begotten son.” Jesus is often referred as God’s “beloved son.” Jesus is the one God loved above all others and it was this that God gave up. Instead of pleasing the One He loved, He gave Him up for us! And He gave Him up for us when we were His enemies.  In doing this He “demonstrates His Own love for us in that: that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Someone once said that the only purely motivated gift of love was the one God gave us in the person of His only Son. When we look at all the presents under our trees this year, let’s remember the greatest present of all. John 3:16 tells us that God so loved us, you and me, “that he gave His only begotten Son.” Looking back over my 40 years of preaching, every year when I would sit down to prepare the sermons for the Christmas season I’d think “this year we’re going to focus on the TRUE meaning of Christmas.” I wonder if people got tired of hearing me say that year after year. I don’t think I’ll say it this year. But the sentiment isn’t lost because I do have trouble getting my mind around the depth of the true meaning of Christmas and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully comprehend it: God becoming a man, born in a manger, with the sole purpose of dying at the hands of those He created to pay the penalty for their sins. This is just a little too profound for me to grasp. That’s why it’s great to visit this truth often.It’s very hard to focus on the real meaning of Christmas at Christmas time. Christmas comes at the wrong time of the year. I mean all the activities of Christmas take my focus off of the true meaning of Christmas.  All of my family Christmas pictures growing up were about the toys and trees.  I got my first bicycle at Christmas. I loved that bicycle (I had training wheels on it for 3 years!) We buy presents for everyone in our family. We send cards and or letters to those far away.  I don’t get the “tree” idea. Where does the pine tree show up in the Christmas story?  I like the idea of lights because Jesus is the “light of the world” and that’s a great symbol. But we take what’s inside, lights, and put them on the outside. Then take what’s outside, trees, and put them on the inside. What’s that all about? We all have parties to go to (maybe not this Covid-19 year) and the list could go on and on. We give and receive presents which are important because it’s the real meaning of Christmas, giving to others because God so loved that He gave His only son for us.During my pastoral years, I’ve always been too busy with the Christmas season to really enjoy Christmas. I’d preach three sermons the Sunday before Christmas and then a Christmas Eve service.  Since retiring from the pastoral role, I’ve found I’m still very busy at this time of year. I have to get lights up. I need to shop for everyone in my family. I need to decorate the house in some way. Since my wife is still working I’m doing a lot of the cooking! I didn’t realize how much planning and effort that takes. All those years I thought I was the only one that too busy over the Holiday season, but now I find it must have been true for everyone! But, vowing once again, I’m going to do my best not to let all the activity and stress and strains of the season block my view of the true meaning of Christmas: God have us Himself so that we might have eternal life! Linus is absolutely right about the true message of Christmas. Luke 2:7 tells us, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger…” Paul wants his readers to understand that since they have put their confidence in Christ, rather than in a religious system, they too are not of Ishmael but of Isaac. Galatians 4:28 says, “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.” There are several contrasts between the child of Hagar and child of Sarah. The child of the slave girl, Ishmael, came into the world through natural means. Abraham had sexual intercourse with the slave girl provided to him by his wife Sarah and she conceived and delivered a son. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. This is all completely natural and was the result of the “will of man,” not according to the will of God. Sarah’s son Isaac, on the other hand, was born of a supernatural birth according to the will and promise of God. His conception and birth were God’s promise and not man’s decision. You might also notice that Ishmael was circumcised at the age of 13, the age of awareness, while Isaac was circumcised as an 8 day old infant, an age at which a person is not even conscious of what is taking place around him or the significance of it. In other words, Ishmael represents the rational, legal, and natural relationship with God, while Isaac represents the supernatural relationship.There are two kinds of births. The first is physical, and every human has a birthdate that marks this event. Then there is the spiritual birth, or as Jesus informed Nicodemus, a “re-birth.” When Jesus said you must be born again, He was referring to the spiritual birth that takes place once a human puts their faith in Jesus and not in religion. One is flesh and one is spirit. One is supernatural, one is natural. The first makes us children of God by creation. The second makes us children of God by redemption. Those redeemed are the spiritual heirs and the legitimate children of God. The others remain slaves according to the flesh.From the very beginning, there has been animosity between the two children. Galatians 4:29 goes on to clarify the perpetual dynamic that takes place between the flesh and the spirit. Paul writes, “But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.” Conflict between the two sons of Abraham began from the very start. This jealousy and resentment between Sarah and Hagar and their sons Isaac and Ishmael created an unparalleled hate which has set off wars and atrocities for four thousand years. What Paul is saying here is that those who were trying to pull the Galatian believers back into an observance of the laws were making themselves like Ishmael, while the believers in Christ and God’s grace were like Isaac. We, like Isaac, relate to God based on who we are. We do not relate to God like Ishmael, based on what we do! The narrator of Herman Melville’s book, “Moby Dick” begins his story with the words, “call me Ishmael.” When this narrator tells us to call him Ishmael, he’s telling us about himself. He is an outcast. He is rejected by his father and a pariah to his people. He is the son of a slave and destined to remain such his entire life. Although protected by God, his half-brother would inherit all that his father leaves. He is rebellious and jealous and bitter and in many ways senses that he has been passed over for all the good things in life. He is a man set on vengeance like the Ahab of Moby Dick. He will stop at nothing to get even or to hurt the “chosen” and take for himself the best of everything. He is the one who will do what it takes to get what he wants.Ishmael, the child of Hagar, is used by Paul to contrast the situation of the believer in Christ with the non-believer. The non-believer is trapped, enslaved to making his way in life on his own. He must put his confidence in his own abilities rather than trust in the loving relationship with his father. He is an illegitimate child. This child is a slave, while the other child, the son of the free woman, Sarah, is an heir. Through faith in Christ, the Messiah, we are heirs to the promise. Children of promise do not live with their parents under an arrangement of law. Their connection is not based on what they “do” but on who they “are.” They live together based on love. In Galatians 4:25-26, Paul writes, “Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.”Paul sees the earthly Jerusalem as the center of the religion of bondage. God was shut up in a temple from the people and accessed only through strict religious rituals and sacrifices and mediators called priests. Paul’s argument is that those who hold to such religion, as Maxie Dunnam writes, “…whether they in fact trace their ancestry to Ishmael or not, are sons of Hagar. That line continues prolifically until today, for it includes all those who seek salvation apart from the freely given grace of God through Jesus Christ.” Dunnam goes on to say that on the other hand “Those who acknowledge Christ as Lord, who by faith receive His grace, claim the Jerusalem above. Like Isaac, the believing recipients of grace are the children of promise, whether any trace of Isaac’s blood flows through them are not. It is grace, all grace!” When Jesus and the apostles refer to the law,” they are often referring specifically to the first five books of the Old Testament. There is normally a threefold division of the Old Testament in Jewish thinking; the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets. The Law is the Pentateuch consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Writings refer to Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. The Prophets refer to everything else.  Paul asks the Galatians in Chapter 4:21, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?” The Law consists of more than the issues handed down to Moses on Sinai. It also encompasses the historical information as well. So Paul goes back to early passages in Genesis and connects his argument with the story of Abraham and Sarah. He writes in Galatians 4:22-24, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.”Paul had already talked about Abraham as the father of the faithful, now Paul addresses another aspect of Abraham’s life. He not only had Isaac, but he had another son named Ishmael. Ishmael was born because Sarah and Abraham took matters into their own hands. It could have been as many as 18 years since God had originally given Abraham the promise of a son that he and Sarah decided to help God out. Our self-effort associated with the “flesh” in our passage results in children of Hagar or children of the flesh. I think I’ve given birth to several Ishmael’s in my life. I have taken things into my own hands and ended up really messing things up.Jon Courson in his commentary on Galatians observed, “You see, to this day, blood is shed daily in the ongoing struggle between the children of Ishmael and the children of Israel. So, too, in my own life, whenever Ishmael is born as a result of my own fleshly efforts, strife, anxiety, and tension are also birthed in my life.” Although considered the father of the “faith” filled, Abraham had a problem with impatience and God recorded that for our instruction. When I get impatient waiting for God’s promises to come true, I tend to want to take matters into my own hands and help God out. It always results in an “Ishmael.” It always results in trouble! God always fulfills His promises, in His time because He’s always faithful. Yet, I have a lot of Ishmael’s clinging to my legs and have to deal with them. Like with Abraham, Ishmael became a problem for the child of promise. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that those who wait, (notice: wait!) upon the Lord will renew their strength and mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary! In Galatians 4:19-20, Paul sings a “song sung blue” which he sings “with a cry in his voice.” The emotions get the best of him. He writes, “…my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.” The Wycliffe commentary says, “Paul’s pain and concern were like those of a mother in travail. Yet what he agonizingly sought for was not the new birth of his friends (they were his children already in the Lord), but the full forming of the new life in them (Ephesians 4:13; cf. Philippians 3:10). Another visit, he felt, would be highly desirable. It would accomplish more than the pen. Then he could speak softly to them, as a mother to an erring but still beloved child, and thus change his voice, which now necessarily seemed harsh.”Paul was a religious fanatic. His zeal, as he called it, drove him to try to destroy the church of God. He participated in murder; he arrested and enslaved both men and women, and participated in some of the worst crimes against humanity imaginable. He did all this in the name of religious zeal! This was the same religious zeal of the Judaizers, Paul was still zealous. But now with Christ, he has a true zeal for the welfare of the Galatians. He has the right kind of zeal that moved him to want the best for others. God expressed that kind of zeal for each of us as well. John 3:16 tells us all about it. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” We see Paul teaching us about the right kind of zeal again in Romans 5:8; “But God demonstrates His own (zeal?) love for us in this; while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”The Corinthian church had many zealous people. In the first few chapters Paul identifies them as being “zealous for gifts.” Then before he expounds on the superior value of “love,” he says in 1 Corinthians 12:31, right before the famous chapter on love, “But be zealous for the better gifts. And I shew unto you yet a more excellent way.” After going through the definition and identification of true biblical love (agape), he then tells the Corinthians, plagued by dispute and disorganization and strife and struggle, “to pursue love” (1 Corinthians 14:1). We can be zealous for our own ideas. We can be zealous for being right. We can be zealous for a particular interpretation. We can be zealous for our interpretation of reality. We can be zealous for our particular Spiritual gift, as well as our abilities and talents. We can be zealous for all the right things even. But there’s something far greater than being right. It’s love! Nothing will ever trump love. Be zealous for love! In his sermon on zeal, John Wesley wrote, “But of all holy tempers, and above all others, see that you be most zealous for love. Count all things loss in comparison of this,—the love of God and all mankind. It is most sure, that if you give all your goods to feed the poor, yea, and your body to be burned, and have not humble, gentle, patient love, it profiteth you nothing. O let this be deep engraved upon your heart: All is nothing without love!” In verses 16 and 17 of Galatians chapter 4, we read about the zeal of the Judaizers that was leading the Galatians away from the cross and back to the law. The Judaizers were quite persuasive because of their zeal for the law. Religious zeal often leads to unspeakable behavior. Division, disputes, rivalries and the like are most often the results of such zeal. Paul himself had a “mad or radical zeal” for the law and persecuted Christians and was even guilty of murder. John Calvin wrote, “Paul knew what great danger Christians faced from these groups of people.” Jesus was the victim of religious zeal. Paul was the victim of religious zeal throughout Europe and Asia Minor. The Jews often sought to kill him because of his message of grace. Religious zeal disrespects the rights of others. When Luke describes Paul’s radical religious zeal, he uses a phrase in Acts 8:3 about how Paul went about destroying the church of Jesus. The same phrase is used to “describe the devastation caused by an army or a wild beast tearing its meat.”But zeal in and of itself isn’t bad! Galatians 4:18 is subject to various interpretations but I prefer the focus that comes from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. It gives us this verse like this, “Now it is always good to be enthusiastic about good—and not just when I am with you.” The Bible teaches us that we should be zealous for “the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 23:17). It says, “Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the LORD.” Paul told Titus (Titus 2:14) that Jesus saved us “…to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” The “good” kind of zeal always works to bring unity as the Spirit works His fruit into our lives. We find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. These are the “good” things that the Spirit produces in our lives. We should be zealous for these things. These are the things that Peter is talking about when he asks his readers to consider, “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” (1 Peter 3:13).Paul makes it clear in this passage as well as in Romans 10:2-3 where he says, “For I can testify that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not in line with the truth.” The truth of the Gospel is that it produces in us the fruits of the Spirit. Most of the things we want to pound the table over are things that bring hate instead of love. They bring sorrow instead of joy to any discussion. They inspire strife and confusion rather than peace. Over zealousness for my own perspective makes me impatient with opposing ideas.  Kindness goes out the window in overzealous debates. There is rarely “goodness” of any kind present at such times. Gentleness is supplanted by aggression and other hurtful approaches. The faithfulness necessary to maintain healthy and happy relationships dissipates in zealous expressions of “my truth.” Finally, self-control is gone! Misplaced zeal never produces the fruits of the Spirit. It always results in harm for those involved.

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