Daily Faith Walk by Galen Harrill

The Place of the Church

By Galen Harrill / October 25, 2022 October 25, 2022

“The Place of the Church” is the opening sermon in a series on the importance of the church delivered in September 2022 at the North Penn Church of Christ. The lessons are mainly from the book of Ephesians. The outline is under the video.

The Place of the Church Animated language of love…. Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed
Chose us
Love
Predestined
To be adopted
Sons
With His pleasure and will
Grace
Freely given
Redemption
Forgiveness of sins
Riches
Lavished
Good pleasure

Purposeful prayer….

To know Him better
- His love
- His plan
Understand hope
Understand power

The plan was always the church!

22-23 – And he placed all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all things in every way.
All of Christ’s Lordship over all is given to the church!
Presently, the body is the fullness of Christ!

Come Walk with Us!

Faith vs. Dogma

By Galen Harrill / October 13, 2022 October 13, 2022

I have a kind of convergence of thought going on lately as I consider various questions. As I process, I’m realizing a lot struggle people are having today is one of faith vs. dogma. Young people my kids’ ages leave home and leave the church. People who have been a part of the church their whole lives suffer through a pandemic never to return. In a different vein, long-standing friendships are severed over politics or a stance on some social issue. And it strikes me – churched or unchurched, we are living in dogmatic times.

I take issue with Merriam-Webster here. I don’t equate dogma with doctrine. I think rather we can approach doctrine faithfully or dogmatically. And I think it’s critical to understand what’s at stake. When we approach doctrine dogmatically, we shut down questions. When we approach doctrine faithfully, we invite questions. Faith breathes. Dogma suffocates. Faith moves. Dogma sits. Faith lives. Dogma calcifies. Faith is hard. Dogma is easy. Paradoxically, faith anchors. Dogma is easily dislodged.

As I said, questions are catalyzing these thoughts. Some of my questions I’m almost afraid to voice out loud because, as I said before, these are dogmatic times. If you ask a thoughtful question, dogma oversimplifies difficulties and questions why you would raise such a question. You can find yourself on the outside of a group you have a long-standing relationship with – you can find yourself shunned. But that doesn’t stop the questions – and here is where I think the issue is….

I can answer my kids’ questions with dogma, giving them easy answers to complex questions. I can question them as to why they would even bring up some questions, shutting down discussion and imposing a false peace – but that’s just what it would be – a false peace. If the dogma doesn’t make sense to them (and dogma rarely does) the questions don’t go away. And when they’re out from under my roof living far away from the church of their youth, they’ll look for answers to those questions somewhere other than the places they received dogmatic answers. They’ll leave the church.

We can answer our brothers and sisters with dogma. And when a pandemic comes and they can’t be together with the saints, they’ll go somewhere else when they can finally get out. Maybe to a volleyball league or the Lion’s Club.

If we are going to survive… no…. let’s aim higher than that…if we are going to thrive, we’d better answer questions with faith. Faith will wrestle. Faith will deal with ambiguity. Faith will breathe. Faith will give life.

Okay. So, I addressed the church issue. I want to be clear. We live in dogmatic times. Have I said that? It’s not just in the church where dogma exists. It’s not even primarily in the church. It’s out in the world too – neck-deep in spades as evidenced in a cancel culture that can only work in a dogmatic world. Our political and social discourse is full of poorly supported dogma. Do you hear what I am saying? The world has always been dogmatic. But unlike the church, it can’t be any different because it doesn’t have faith. And this is our in. Faith breathes. Faith lives. We may be excoriated for expressing ideas that fall outside the current dogmatic sphere, but we should be brave enough to do it. Because as the mob does its worst and gives us up for dead, a few will linger. And wonder. And as our faith animates us and we, like Paul, get up off the ground and walk again, that wonder will turn into questions. And they have then started down the path of faith.

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Monarchs

By Galen Harrill / October 11, 2022 October 11, 2022

They don’t think of us at all of course, that’s just my wild overdeveloped right brain’s idea. I’m talking about monarch butterflies. You know them, don’t you? Those orange with black striped powerhouses that migrate some 3,000 miles to Mexico from all over the country only to return in the spring from whence they came. (Monarchs deserve words like “whence” I think.)

Here at the Harrill household we’re a little crazy for monarchs. We’ve torn up turf and planted a decidedly small meadow, complete with milkweed, the favored food of the caterpillars. We’ve tagged the migrators for scientific research groups dedicated to monarch preservation. My youngest has put splints on a couple of wounded-winged monarchs and watched them flutter off for parts unknown. We’ve collected the caterpillars to protect them from predators at their vulnerable metamorphosis stage of chrysalis formation and released them when they hatch. We do all this – but they don’t give us a second thought. Not at all. They just fly off to Mexico unaware that some of them owe us their very lives.

And it makes me think (because unlike monarchs I can) – how much do I think about what God has done for me? Paul says this – “For in Him we live, move, and have our being.” Simply put, we don’t exist without Him. And yet, do I think about it? Do I look at every breath as a grace given me from Him? Do I go about my day consciously thinking of how He animates me? Do I, in this existence of mine, place my whole self in relation to Him? In the final analysis, I’m convinced God works for the attention He deserves from us every day. Today, He even used monarchs… even though they didn’t think of me at all….

Come Walk with Us!

Avoiding the Kool-Aid

By Galen Harrill / September 23, 2022 September 23, 2022

Avoiding the Kool-Aid

This may be a little heavy. I don’t think so much in words as I do in pictures and images – and of late my thoughts are an avalanche of cognitive dissonance. Maybe you’re there too – that feeling you get when something is totally different from your expectations and experiences. These days, I wonder sometimes if I even understand anything the world throws at me – I find it all quite bizarre. The latest bizarre episode comes (circuitously) from someone who used to go to church and has stopped. “Yeah, been there, done that, I’m just not drinking the Kool-Aid anymore.” Exact words. To one of her former sisters in Christ. Huh?

Forget about the insulting implication. We can expect that from non-believers. It hurts more, however, when it comes from someone we were close to in the church, when they place us in the same category as a crazy suicidal cult group where over 900 people died for their unquestioning allegiance to a charismatic lunatic. Sure, it’s hyperbolic and of course they are doing some major self-justifying. But it makes me think – what was her faith built on?

I’m not sure. But I suspect a lot of Christians look for easy answers. They want to put their thinking on autopilot so they don’t have to wrestle so much with how God wants them to live in this world. The problem with that is when not worked, spiritual muscles atrophy – and when harder questions come, these folks aren’t ready to deal with them. And today, there are a lot of hard questions – and the easy answers are coming from a pathological world that would have us walk in its well-worn paths. God answers our questions within the context of the cross – a decidedly hard set of answers requiring sacrifice, endurance, faith, and a kind of love so cosmically mind-bending the world can’t even see it. We need to avoid those paths of least resistance wherever we find them because in the end, that’s where real destruction comes from.

Einstein purportedly asked, “Are they crazy, or am I?” I’ve asked that. But what I’ve found is, the peace I have, the joy I have, the love I’m capable of (and all-to-often imperfectly do) – all these things have all been forged in the pain of the cross – plain foolishness to the world, but rock-solid truth proven over time as I daily discover new ways to love God and my neighbors more perfectly. Even to those who think I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid….

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The Measure of God’s Blessings

By Galen Harrill / September 7, 2022 September 23, 2022

The Measure of God’s Blessings

Pretty exciting times at the Harrill homestead this week! Whereas we had received maybe an inch of rain from mid-June to September 4^th in total, Monday we measured 2 ¾ inches in a nice, steady, soaking rain. My wife and I have strained the well this summer watering trees, flowers, and vegetables, all in the attempt to keep some things alive. I honestly can’t remember such a dry summer. We’ve seen close to 90% probabilities of rain three days out fizzle to absolutely nothing on the expected day all summer long. Anyone in the Northeast knows what we are talking about.

Weather always makes me think. Consider – we’ve watched the radar as a storm cell barreled down on us only to fall apart right before it reached us. We’ve seen others veer off to the south or north in accurate examples of “scattered storms.” But the most infuriating one we saw was a three county-long line of a storm far from being anything like scattered literally falling to pieces a mile to the west and then reforming about a mile to the east with nothing we could do about it. Our rain gauge got a little damp. Rain gauge. Hmmmm….

You see, we know God controls the weather as He sends His rain on the just and unjust. Now, we’ve prayed for rain. And it seems like the rain and the gauge is like some sort of all-to-accurate metaphor. And so, as I have contemplated my parched earth, my attitude towards the reasons for my parched earth, and…. Well, anyway, I wonder – are we in the habit of putting out rain gauges to measure God’s blessings in our lives? I don’t mean like in the old song “Count Your Blessings,” but more like, “Okay God, it’s time for me to do a cost-benefit analysis of my life with you.” Or, “I’m looking for some very specific things from you and I’m going to see if you come through for me in the ways I expect.” And it strikes me (as I trip over the gas can I haven’t had to fill for my mower all summer) – any kind of ingratitude I exhibit for anything God does means I’m looking at the wrong things in the wrong places.

Didn’t Jesus say His blessings are immeasurable? Are not God’s greatest gifts free? Doesn’t our ingratitude stem mostly from our wrong-headed transactional ways of thinking or our inability to see what God is doing in our lives? Really, is there anything I’ve done at all that is worth all God has done for me? We all know the answers to these questions, but we sure tend to forget.

So. Thank you God for the rain – but thank you more for the reminders this summer of the true blessings we have in you!

These are the passages I had in mind when writing this….

Malachi 3:10

Luke 6:38

Romans 3:23-24

Did you catch the hidden blessing in the drought??

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Back to Church

By Galen Harrill / September 6, 2022 September 8, 2022

“Back to Church” is a sermon based on the idea of “Back to School.” Specifically for our own congregation, I discuss principles regarding the importance of church, recognizing some of the difficulties of the past two years have parallels in Israel’s history and the New Testament church. The outline follows the video

Regarding the difficulties…. Some exile parallels….

We are not the same as we were….
- Isaiah 10:20-22
- Ezra 9:8
Some have lost focus….
- Nehemiah 1:1-3
Some will not return….
- Misunderstanding – Jeremiah 44
- Discouragement – Ecclesiastes 7:10
- Habit – Hebrews 10:25

What God can do!

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Race Against Horses

By Galen Harrill / September 1, 2022 September 8, 2022

“If running against men has wearied you, how will you race against horses?”

I can’t think of anyone who had a tougher job than Jeremiah. In his day he saw the last good king of Judah die in a senseless battle God had tried to warn him away from. From that point, the land of Judah was eaten away by her enemy over the course of twenty plus years until she was completely destroyed. Jeremiah was given the task of preaching unpopular sermons of repentance and surrender and was verbally and physically assaulted. We would forgive him if he complained a bit. He complains a bit. God answers one of those complaints in Jeremiah 12:5 – “Look, if you can’t handle racing against people, how are you going to race against horses?” And it strikes me – God expected him to race with horses….

Well, sort of, there is precedent. But what He really expected was for Jeremiah to do what He told him to do and leave the consequences to Him. Jeremiah was complaining that God was taking too long in His justice. Not that Jeremiah wanted to see his country destroyed necessarily, but he was tired of preaching and seeing the people look at him like he had two heads. “Just a second, Jeremiah, you say we’ve got to stop doing what we’re doing and if we don’t we’ll be sorry – but nothing – n-o-t-h-i-n-g will happen! You’re a fraud! And a stupid dangerous one at that!”

I get it. When we stand up for what is right, say for example, speaking the truth in love or calling sin, “sin” or preaching whole-hearted allegiance to God and people say we are haters or ignorant of how the world works or alarmists, we can get caught up in the “No, I’m not,” “Yes, you are” game. And we can turn to God and say, “Can I get a little help here? Just a little sign from you to them so they can know I’m not crazy?” and God, being God and not working on our timetable, is justified in saying, “You are getting distracted. You’ve said what I needed you to say, if they won’t listen, move on, I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry if they think you’re crazy, I know you and that’s all that matters. You go run with the horses over there and tear it up while I deal with this in my own patient and hopeful time.” In other words, keep at God’s business. Do what God wants you to do. If there is widespread repentance, great! If only a few listen, God has won a few. If no one listens, at least we are His.

I think we are in an age of exhaustion. The information age is relentless in bombarding folks with useless information that distracts from God’s voice. More people than ever seem to believe the ends justify the means. Talk of civility is ridiculed and entire bridges of communication have been nuked to make way for the highways of vitriol and spite and the world tries to funnel us to those roads. But this is not the time to give up on God’s ways. Nor is it time to sit down and cry. This is the time to speak God’s love, truth, justice, mercy and holiness to a world that very well may hear all of what we say as a foreign language. But there are always some who will strain to hear. There are always some that, because we didn’t give up doing and saying the right things, will tune their ears to God’s language and become fluent. So, let’s not lose heart – let’s race with the horses.

Come Walk with Us!

Do I Need the Church?

By Galen Harrill / August 24, 2022 September 8, 2022

“Do I need the church?” Hmmm…. If you start feeling uncomfortable about what I have here I beg you to stick with me a while. I don’t intend to beat anyone up. I am mindful of Isaiah’s words in prophesying that Jesus does not break bruised reeds or snuff out smoldering wicks and I think a lot of us fit in those categories. But I recently read something I think I was supposed to agree with but found I didn’t. It put high emphasis on the need for the church, stating how being away from it will adversely affect your relationship with God. That part I agree with. What I took issue with was the other part of the idea, which was when you cut the church out of the deal you can still be a Christian. The more God teaches me about the church the more I see this as dead wrong.

Now, a lot of this is attitudinal. I know a lot of people who for reasons beyond their control cannot make it to the gathering of believers. We call certain people our “shut-ins” because they can’t leave their houses. Others have jobs on Sunday that are their only means of support. Still others may live debilitatingly far from other believers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, astutely points out that none of us is guaranteed a body of believers in which to belong – but that’s not really our problem is it? The real problem is when by God’s grace we are given a body to meet with and we decide, “Nah, it’s not important.”

Consider – no letter in the New Testament is written outside of the context of a church. You are thinking “Philemon.” Go ahead, take a look. Paul wrote him a letter, v. 1… and to the church meeting in “your home” v. 2. The two to Timothy and to Titus are chock-full of church matters. Of course, we have to take God’s word personally – but it is equally imperative (and widely overlooked, dismissed, and fought against) we take it communally.

The fact is, most of what God calls us to is impossible outside the context of the church. How are we to demonstrate our love to our brothers and sisters if we never see them? How can all people know we are Christians by our love if we never associate with them? How can we demonstrate Jesus’ power in destroying dividing walls of hostility if we never set foot inside the walls where our brothers and sisters are? How can we show the most excellent way of love if we have no one to show Jesus’ radical love to? “Yeah, but I don’t really have anything in common with or even get along with anyone at church.” That’s the point! Jesus Christ is our unifying factor, forming us into one body, teaching us to love each other deeply from the heart! So, if we call ourselves Christians but purposefully stay away from the church, not only do we obliterate our witness of God’s power in the world (and to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms), we also stand on incredibly shaky ground, testing the limits of what it means to be a Christian.

Please understand, I don’t mean to be harsh. It’s just simply too easy to slip into the world’s ways of thinking without even meaning to. So we need to be clear about what God thinks about the church and strive to help as many as possible understand that. God help and bless us all….

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In God’s Presence

By Galen Harrill / August 21, 2022 August 22, 2022

Good day at North Penn this morning, this is the final lesson from the book of James titled “In God’s Presence.” The idea is tied to the idea of wisdom vs. foolishness, God’s world view vs. the world’s world view, and double mindedness vs. singleness of purpose. Outline under the video.

In God’s Presence James 5:13-20 Our relationship to God….

In the bad….
- James 1:2; 2:6; 5:1-7
In the good….
- Exodus 15:1-18, 21
- Luke 1:46-56, 68-79
In sickness….
- Miraculous – II Kings 4:8-37; Luke 8:40-56; Acts 3:1-10
- Other – II Kings 20:7; I Timothy 5:23
- The fellowship comes to the sick – Matthew 18:20
From sin….
- Confession = accountability – v. 16
- The need to call others back – v. 19-20

Prayer….

Two world views
- James 1:5-7
- James 4:2-3
- Example of Elijah

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The Bride of Christ

By Galen Harrill / August 18, 2022 August 18, 2022

Most summers find me working one week at Camp Manatawny, a Christian camp out in Douglassville, PA. On one evening devotional this past summer our speaker asked us to turn to the person to our right and say one good think about our church. We did. He spoke a little longer and then asked us to turn to the person on the left and say one bad thing about our church. As we turned to the left and took a breath to express the bad and the ugly, our speaker loudly commanded, “Stop!” and then said “Who gave you the right to criticize the bride of Christ?” It was a beautiful piece of rhetoric with a fantastic slap.

For a couple of seconds, I wondered what I would have heard if we were able to go on, but only for a couple because I already know what I would have heard – I’ve heard it before. “Our church is too….” “Our leadership doesn’t….” “Our singing is….” “Our preacher is….” Our services are….” “We don’t have….” It’s all there.

We think we’re justified. After all, most of the letters in the Bible are addressing problems and Revelation chapters two and three have plenty of criticism. But the one doing the criticizing in Revelation is Christ Himself. And Paul is doing something a bit different and it strikes me – that difference is in what we too often do by bringing the church down on the one hand instead of placing ourselves squarely within the church and working on the church’s improvement on the other. If we are the bride of Christ, it makes sense to collectively look at ourselves in the mirror and fix what needs fixing. Christ’s warnings in Revelation are instructive, as are Paul’s admonitions.

But we must set ourselves solidly in the church. We must see our brothers and sisters in the church as part of our own body. And it seems to me if I focus and work on the plenty in me that needs fixing instead of something else I may have very little control over, I’m going a long way towards making the bride of Christ that much more beautiful.

Let me finish on a slightly different track. Over the past couple of years, a lot of people have left the church. Some have tried to come back and have been discouraged by the change in their own church’s makeup and dynamic. Others have tired of the vigorous interaction with other parts of the body that mold and shape us into Christ’s likeness. Still others have swapped the transforming power of the church for activities. Despite all this, the church is still the bride of Christ. She is still the most beautiful thing on earth, teaching us love, humility, righteousness, holiness, service and…well, every good thing God intends for us. And she is totally worth our attention. After all, Christ gives her all of His.