The preeminent Christ is the answer for all the oddities and evils that assail the Christian soul. He is more than enough for our every need. In the book of Colossians, God reveals the superlative nature of Jesus in an elegant, powerful, and life-changing way. The letter calls us to live with Jesus as the primary focus of life every day – a practice that truly makes all the difference.

Over this summer, I will be teaching through Colossians and look forward to how it will change me and those who study with me. If you would enjoy working through my preparatory notes, you can [DOWNLOAD] them here.

Throughout human history, a kept covenant has always been the most endangered of species. Our era is even worse than most, institutionalizing and glorifying faithlessness in a way most previous generations couldn’t have imagined.

That situation makes a study of the biblical hero David very profitable. David is a great covenant keeper – a partial reason behind his being called “a man after God’s own heart.” David was greatly true to his word, keeping an incredible number of difficult covenants. Even when he broke some, David repented and got back into God’s perfect promise-keeping groove.

If you are interested in learning more about covenant-keeping, here are some of David’s major covenants with passages for study:

• David’s covenant with Jonathan, his friend. 1 Samuel 18-23
• David’s covenant with Mephibosheth, the outcast. 2 Samuel 4, 9, & 19
• David’s covenant with Abner, his former enemy. 2 Samuel 3; 2 Kings 2
• David’s covenant with Gibeonites, the tricksters. 2 Samuel 21
• David’s covenant with Israel. 2 Samuel 5
• David’s covenant with Barzillai, his benefactor. 2 Samuel 19; Jeremiah 41
• David’s covenant with God. 2 Samuel 23; Psalm 103

C.O.V.E.N.A.N.T.

I have found that sometimes a person desires to grow as a covenant-keeper but is uncertain how to proceed. To help, I put together a little promise keeping guide from scripture:

Count on the Lord. (Galatians 5)

Obtain strength in God’s joy. (Nehemiah 8)

View your own sin honestly. (Psalm 51)

Engage with others. (Ecclesiastes 4)

Never turn from scripture. (Joshua 1)

Abide in the light. (1 John 1)

Never despair. (Psalm 42)

Tell truth in love. (Ephesians 4)

The bottom line is that no human can keep all his or her covenants via human strength alone. Other people are too difficult; we are too deeply flawed; and life situations are too vacillating for us to stay true. Yet by God’s strength and the hope that comes in Him, we can become great covenant-keepers like David.

Because of a sinkhole that destroyed a runway this week, flights were canceled at one of the busiest airports in the world. The astonishing news immediately reminded me of a Bible study I taught about a year ago …

The Sinkhole Syndrome

Sinkholes occur when a gap appears in the ground beneath the surface. Usually it’s because an underground river or aquifer has run dry or been diverted. Acidification because of limestone soils also plays a role because the more acidic lime water eats holes in the rock beneath. When that happens, the unseen ground underneath experiences a cavernous emptiness. It’s all dry and terribly unstable though no one on the surface knows anything about it.

Then, at some point the surface collapses into the empty space. Ironically, this usually happens when it rains really hard. Water is very heavy and the flooding water seeps down, eroding the dry structure underneath. By the way, Florida has the perfect combination of underground rivers, lots of rain, and limestone soils and thus Florida has many large sinkholes. Missouri and Texas are also known for sinkholes.

Years ago, I was on an advisory board headed by a famous preacher named Gordon MacDonald. Gordon had just written a best-selling book about what he called “The Sinkhole Syndrome.” This concept is brilliant. Gordon looked at scripture and life and realized that:

“The majority of humans spend their lives only on the surface. They have accumulated a host of good and perhaps even excellent assets such as academic degrees, work experiences, key relationships, and physical strength or beauty … There is nothing wrong with all that. But often it is discovered too late that the private world of a person the [inner soul] is in a state of weakness. And when that is true one is very close to collapsing in the sinkhole syndrome.” – Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World

As you may know, Jesus claimed that He is Himself the giver of Living Water. The one who trusts in Jesus has ever-bubbling springs in his soul no matter how dry the circumstances of life. Read again Jesus’ words from John 7:38 posted above and think on that truth.

Without Jesus, without the relationship with God offered in Christ, a person is empty under the surface. Gordon’s thesis went on to describe how over time even people who have received Jesus as Savior can still dry up inside. It’s not that they become unjustified or unborn again – that’s biblically absurd. However, they do stop going to the well. They stop actively trusting Jesus. They let the living water get diverted. They get absorbed in all the surface issues that consume our days.

Christians can even do this in their efforts to follow Jesus in spiritual life! I’m serious. We can become dried-up sinkholes waiting to happen even as we diligently work on being mature followers of Jesus. This is why Paul would write the churches in Galatia – and all of us:

“How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Galatians 3:3 NLT)

The New Testament is full of these stories. So is every pastor’s counseling file. Hard-working, well-intentioned people dry up with no inner spiritual living water. Christians forget to draw on the real inner life they have in Father, Jesus, and Spirit. We get fleshly and surface about everything – even our Christian walk. And that means we become a sinkhole waiting to happen.

Such was Gordon’s fantastic summary of a sad scriptural reality. Tragically, it also became his personal story. Mr. MacDonald made national headlines when he was caught in adultery. He was revealed as a liar and manipulator of the highest caliber. It was an awful time, especially for Gordon’s family and for the board on which I served.

Yet it was also a great season. Gordon humbled himself. He went through a restoration process and has seen the Lord rebuild his life mightily. While I have some concerns with the process of Gordon’s restoration, I am thrilled with the result – especially the fact that he and his wife Gail are approaching their 50^th wedding anniversary.

Here’s the point: if a spiritual leader like Gordon MacDonald can find himself at the bottom of a sinkhole, if biblical heroes like David can see their inner world collapse, then you and I are not immune. I’m thrilled that Gordon, David, and many others have been rebuilt. But my prayer is that you and I never collapse in the first place.

I was feeling a bit down and sorry for myself. Some leadership struggles were not going well. At church, the rain-soaked congregation just didn’t have the “feel” of momentum in the Lord like it does on most Sundays. God’s Word was rich, as always, but I didn’t feel particularly effective teaching it.

Appropriately, the study was on David the broken man. Think on that for a moment and you will surely chuckle. Thankfully, I was motivated to follow David’s lead and find my correction and solace in the Lord. As always, He was more than enough. I ended up convicted, encouraged and joyful.

And our God is lavish in His love and restoration. When I opened my mail late that night, I found a flood of encouraging notes from wonderful fellow broken followers of Jesus. Here are a few:

Thank you for underscoring the importance of admitting our brokenness and confessing our sins to others. Thank you for all you do to shepherd our flock so well – even in the midst of your own storms.

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I could hardly wait to journal my thoughts after today’s sermon. I was especially challenged with the idea that a listing of details and expression of tears does not necessarily equate repentance … naming them in light of how serious God sees them, and in a spirit of true confession, is a much more difficult process. Just like spring cleaning the corners and crevices of our home, the more I uncover and confess, the more grime I find. Eeek and gross! As soon as I left second service, I grabbed [one of the pastors] and confessed the ugliness of being overly critical. He made some good discipline suggestions – most of which are hard! Thank you again for allowing God to use you in a most effective and personal way.

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Thank you for the great message today. We love Frisco Bible. It’s hard to find a church nowadays that talks about sin and repentance.

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If you want to further think through David’s sin and the parallels in our lives, I recommend The paper “The Bathsheba Syndrome: The Ethical Failure of Successful Leaders.” Written by Dean C. Ludwig and Clinton O. Longenecker, it explores the role success plays in our egregious sins. They show how the dark side of success for many people includes loss of strategic focus, control of resources, privileged access, and inflated reckoning of personal ability. You can easily find the paper online. [It was originally published in The Journal of Business Ethics in 1993, pages 265-273.]

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Here’s the power of brokenness in my life: Before I started joined up with [an FBC] discipleship group, my life was fine. I had a wife and 2 kids who loved me. I was going to weekly Bible Study, and I went to church. I had a good job and made plenty of money to feel comfortable and provide for my family. I was floating and even somewhat drifting and didn’t even know it. I had arrived and was living the “American Dream.” The problem is we are not called to live the American Dream, which tells us to accumulate as much stuff as we can and demonstrate to others how great we are in our own strength. We are called to a new life in Christ. We are told, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2). Jesus tells us to “pick up our cross daily and follow Him” (Luke 9:23). I had to be broken before I could thrive. God told me that he expected more of me. … that I needed to start doing hard things and get out of my comfort zone … that I needed to man up and stand firm in the faith (1 Corinthians 16:13). I now want to live a radical life that makes a difference in this dark world. I want to leave an amazing legacy for my kids to follow. I don’t want to accept mediocrity. I want to reject passivity. I want to accept responsibility. I want to lead courageously. I want to invest eternally. These are things I didn’t want before. This is what discipleship does for you. It works. It changes your heart.

Friend, if that doesn’t spur you on toward love and good deeds, someone needs to check and make sure you have a pulse. Seriously, I pray the Lord also edifies you through the encouragement of brokenness.

On this National Day of Prayer in America, please pray for each of us who are believers in Jesus. Along with all the officials, systems, and powers for whom God commands us to pray, please remember to pray for wholly bright believers in Jesus. As I wrote in a recent note to our church Elders:

The Triune God, knowing our desperate need for courage, grants us the most important tool possible – His very presence. The great encouragement passages of the Bible are dominated by the truth that the Father, Son, and Spirit are present and engaged with believers. This grants courage for the battles of life; for conquering self; for engaging the world; and for imparting strength to others.

With you, I thank God for His presence and pray that we shine as lights in the darkness.

On any day in Florence, Italy, one observes a long line of people waiting to go inside and see Michelangelo’s masterpiece called “The David.” This brilliant sculpture seems to breathe and live. It embodies all the great humanist qualities prized by Michelangelo and his age. It is larger than life in both general and specific ways.

For example, the hands are twice the proper size for the statue. The master crafted them that way on purpose because supersized hands fit his big message: that mankind is the triumphant controller of all. In many world cultures, the hand represents the seat of power. Thus the statue boldly proclaims that the ideal human is in charge of all. He is lord of all he surveys with those piercing eyes.

David – the real one of the Bible – would strongly disagree with Michelangelo’s message. He counters by saying that his hands are only great because of God’s training. It is YHWH who rules as Lord. David even wrote that he could not live were not God’s hand shading him. Further, David’s hands [and by extension his life] are only useful and powerful when they are trained by God. Thanks to that training, David becomes a great warrior. He smashes God’s opponents. He is victorious, but only because of the Lord’s blessing through His training.

of Duffield and arms

In contrast to his disagreement with Michelangelo, David appears to completely concur with the Apostle Paul, purveyor of a more nuanced humanism. Paul taught that we dare not trust our own flesh – our immaterial nature tainted by sin. Paul teaches that humans are wonderful, yet must find their strength and direction in the Lord alone.

Considering David’s and Paul’s ethic, a pastor named George Duffield would make an artistic contribution of his own. This one would center on the arm rather than the hand. Below is the story as it appeared on the site http://wordwisehymns.com:

The father and grandfather of George Duffield were both Presbyterian clergymen, and after he graduated from seminary, George followed in their footsteps. He served a number of churches, but it was his pastorate at a church in Philadelphia (1852-1861) that is of most interest to us.

The winter of 1857-58 witnessed the igniting of revival fires in the city. At the centre of this great work was a 33-year-old servant of God named Dudley Tyng. Yet the spiritual harvest was clearly the Lord’s doing, not the result of one person’s ability. Working men used to gather, day after day, during the noon hour, to hear the Word of God.

One day, 5,000 men packed into a local hall. They listened as Mr. Tyng preached a powerful message of commitment. In the course of his sermon, he made this declaration: “I must tell [fulfill] my Master’s errand. And I would rather that this right arm were amputated at the trunk than that I should come short in my duty to you in delivering God’s message.” When the service reached its close, over a thousand men committed their lives to Christ.

Shortly after, Mr. Tyng went to visit a local farm, where he watched with fascination the operation of a corn-shelling apparatus worked by mule power. But suddenly, as he was standing near, the sleeve of his coat caught in the gears, and his arm was pulled into the machine. He was severely injured, and soon infection set in. In those days before antibiotics, that was a life-threatening condition. Several days later Tyng died. His friend, George Duffield, was at his bedside. He asked the dying man if he had any message for the men back in the city. “Tell them to stand up for Jesus,” he replied.

It was for a memorial service in honour of Dudley Tyng that Pastor Duffield wrote the hymn poem that echoes that phrase. (Note the reference to the failure of “the arm of flesh” which perhaps relates to Mr. Tyng’s words and his tragic accident.)

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss.
From victory unto victory His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own.
Put on the gospel armour, each piece put on with prayer;
Where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there.

I pray that we become great warriors in the Lord. It can’t be achieved Michelangelo’s way – by exalting our own human power and throwing a biblical name on it. The only way to victory is that expounded by David, Paul, and Rev. Duffield. Stand in God’s strength alone.