You are a classroom teacher.

• Classroom 1: you walk into a room with a chalkboard and chalk in the tray.
• Classroom 2: you walk into a room with a white board and markers in the tray.

Both rooms appear to be equipped and ready to go? What’s the difference between Classroom 1 and Classroom 2?

Answer: we don’t know if the markers have ink in them or not. People frequently pop open a marker and write until it runs out of ink. Then, instead of throwing it away, they put it back on the tray and grab another marker. Pretty soon, the tray is filled with empty markers. In that respect, a plain old chalkboard with chalk in the tray is superior. What you see is what you get.

Scripture is clear.

…I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Revelation 3.1, ESV)

And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. (Judges 16.20, ESV)

…having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3.5, ESV)

These are wells without water… (2 Peter 2.17, KJV)

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15.8, 9, ESV)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23.25 – 28, ESV)

I shouldn’t skip Isaiah 55. It’s the last of Eugene Peterson’s “Comfort” chapters.

• Judgment: 1 – 39
• Comfort: 40 – 55
• Hope 56 – 66

I’ve memorized a good bit of Isaiah 55. A highlight reel of gems:

We’ve talked about the benefits of obedience, and the beginning echoes that theme…

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live… (Isaiah 55.1 – 3, ESV)

…including a call for repentance:

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55.5, 6, ESV)

Do you have trouble understanding God…or his Word? There’s a verse for that.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8, 9, ESV)

And there’s a promise for those of us who speak his Word. I had claimed it for a sermon on John 9 (“once I was blind but now I see)” I was supposed to preach on March 15. Unfortunately, we got snowed out, canceling the service for icy roads.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55.10, 11, ESV)

I was able to share parts of the sermon with a young Vietnamese man on the Friday before. He promised to read the New Testament that I gave him. Pray for Eli, who describes himself as “spiritual but not religious.”

The chapter ends on a high note:

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55.12, 13, ESV)

After yesterday’s stunning prediction from Isaiah 52.13 – 53.12 of the Suffering Servant who “bore the sin of many,” we change gears. Isaiah 54 contains promises the Lord has used in my life from my first introduction to The Navigators back in 1967.

I’ll never forget Skip Gray’s sermon from Isaiah 54.2, 3:

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. (Isaiah 54.2, 3, ESV)

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago from Isaiah 43, Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, believed in “claiming promises.” A Navigator Core Value today is:

Persevering faith and believing prayer rooted in the promises of God.

Using Isaiah 54.2, 3, Skip challenged us first to lay a firm foundation (“lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes”). That’s why I teach over and over the importance of daily time with God (and I have to teach it to myself!). Then we expect God to bless our ministry of investing in people: “You will spread abroad…and your offspring will possess the nations…”

There’s more! In 2000, I was invited to join the staff of a large church in Alabama (we were living in Colorado at the time) as Minister of Discipleship. “Just come and do that Navigator ministry you did when you were here in the early 1980s.” My first thought was “This sounds like an opportunity for spectacular failure!”

That’s not like me. I’m a “can-do” sort of guy. Right after I thought that, I read Isaiah 54, and right after the verses above is this one:

Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated… (Isaiah 54.4, NIV)

There is was. A direct word. So we went. It’s now 26 years later. We stayed in Alabama for five years, per our agreement with the church, and did some good ministry there. It laid the foundation for our coming back to Colorado and going full-time with The Navigators.

And as I read today, I have to ask myself, Do I need to revisit these promises? “Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes…” Am I winding down at age 79 or is it time to be more like Caleb who told Joshua:

Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this mountain that the LORD promised me that day…

What should I be doing TODAY that could result in “spectacular failure” but that God’s promise of “Do not fear disgrace…” holds? Today I noticed verse 6:

“For the LORD has called you…”

I don’t know where this is going. Stay tuned, and I’ll keep you updated.

Today’s reading is Isaiah 53, the definitive text on the Suffering Servant, which begins with Isaiah 52.13. It’s a perfect Lenten meditation, one of the clearest presentations of the Gospel in all of the Bible – and it’s in the “Old” Testament! I offer the text without interruption. Please read it slowly.

Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 52.13 – 53.12, ESV)

The substitutionary atonement is clear. As Paul wrote:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures… (1 Corinthians 15.3, ESV)

• Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows
• he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities
• with his wounds we are healed
• the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all
• who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
• his soul makes an offering for guilt
• by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities
• he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

…he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. (Hebrews 7.25 – 27, ESV)

It’s St Patrick’s Day. I can’t do better than reprise what I first posted in 2023.

For all the hoopla and wild parties that some practice on March 17, the real story of St. Patrick is worth remembering. A friend and Navigator colleague who is from Northern Ireland summarizes it this way:

It’s important to remember that Patrick was a great missionary. He was an apostle to the Irish in the AD 400s and was used by God to convert the Celts of Ireland to Christianity, despite opposition from those who practiced the Druid religion. – Andrew Henderson

There’s more to the story, including the fact that Patrick was taken from his home in Britain to Ireland and sold as a slave, escaping after six years. Then he returned, years later, to evangelize the people who enslaved him. A nice summary written by Chuck Colson in 2006 is worth the read.

Last year, my friend and Navigator colleague Bill Mowry wrote an extraordinary piece on how Patrick incorporated art and imagination to reach the Irish. This is also an excellent read.

I can’t add to what Chuck and Bill have said except to note that the Apostle Paul was St Patrick’s model:

Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 21.13, ESV)

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1 Corinthians 9.19 – 22, ESV)

Yesterday’s Fret Not piece was triggered by two essays encouraging us not to fall prey to negative news about AI. Isaiah’s warning bears repeating:

For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. (Isaiah 8.11 – 13, ESV)

But Isaiah is always telling us to fret not. Here it is in our reading for today, Isaiah 51:

Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations. (Isaiah 51.7, 8, ESV, emphasis mine)

I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor? (Isaiah 51.12, 13, ESV, emphasis mine)

Some people say that “Fear not” appears in the Bible 365 times, one for every day of the year. It’s an important message.

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. (Matthew 8.23 – 26, ESV, emphasis mine)

I’ve said before that when I get the same word from two disparate sources, I pay attention.

First, a preface: I’ve written about Artificial Intelligence (AI) negatively twice recently. Once was to note that some popular “singers,” both secular and Christian were completely AI generated. The other time was to caution against using AI as a life coach. But I have not participated in the gloom and doom talk that’s prevalent these days.

Both Seth Godin and Sahil Bloom spoke to that phenomenon a couple of days apart. First Seth. In his daily blog of March 4, he links to an interview he gave recently. I haven’t listened to all of it yet, but the opening grabbed me.

Responding to a prompt “Are you pro-AI?” Seth said something like this:

Let’s think about it like the weather. You can be pro-snow or anti-snow, but if it’s snowing out, it’s still snowing out.

I’m glad there are electric typewriters instead of manual typewriters. I’m glad there are spell checkers. Am I glad AI is going to cause disruption to people I care about and industries I care about? It doesn’t matter.

Let me interrupt here. Seth said his reaction to AI’s (possible) disruption doesn’t matter. Like snow (Seth lives in New York, and I’m sure snow was fresh on his mind.), AI is here whether we’re for it or against it. I think that falls under the category of why have opinions about something you can do nothing about? Seth continues:

Here is this tool…and I’m playing with it joyously. I’m aware that people can make arguments about it all day long. It’s just a waste of time. When photography came along, painters were furious. So were wedding photographers when the iPhone came along.

Again, it’s a waste of time to make arguments and say that AI technology is going to put people out of business. I notice we still appreciate artists and some folks still make their living photographing weddings. A few months ago someone writing in the Wall Street Journal pointed that out that a “You’d better believe it” prediction was made several years ago that AI would put radiologists out of business. A few years later we have more radiologists than ever.

Sahil Bloom, writing just three days after Seth’s March 4 blog said that his news feeds are blowing up with negative reports about AI. Why? Quite simply:

Negativity drives online news consumption.

Sahil cites research that claims, “For a headline of average length, each additional negative word increased the click-through rate by 2.3%.” Graphically:

Sahil’s piece is worth the read in its entirety. He opens the second part of his essay with:

So, yes, I feel like I need to say something about AI…And this may not be popular…I’m optimistic about the future. – Sahil Bloom, emphasis his

In other words,

Fret not!

The day I read Sahil Bloom’s optimism about AI, Christianity Today published an article by a professor who used AI to help him research Jesus’ teaching and miracle priorities. Seth Godin uses AI to do “tasks” so that he freer to create new content. Sahil Bloom closes with…

So, let’s all strive to be a bit more optimistic. Not blindly, but thoughtfully. By becoming aware of the overwhelming bias towards negativity. By making a concerted effort to balance your information diet…I don’t think there is any denying that the coming few decades will have periods of uncertainty. Jobs that felt safe may no longer be. Career paths we planned for will get shaken up. To paraphrase Mark Twain, a lot of things we know for sure probably just ain’t so. But despite all of that, you’ll make it through. – Sahil Bloom, emphasis his

Isaiah told us centuries ago:

For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. (Isaiah 8.11 – 13, ESV)

Here I am with my oldest son, Mark, celebrating last year’s Pi Day at the Pi Bar in Colorado Springs. (Note the pot pies!) He’s sporting his pi cufflinks, and I’m wearing the shirt that shows the 6-digit version of my birthday, 121346, occurring about 5.3 million digits into the decimal expansion of pi.

I reprise what I wrote last year…

Is it important that my birthday sequence occurs 5.3 million digits into the decimal expansion of pi? Not at all. But pi is important for a variety of mathematical reasons as I have written about before.

Pi is also a reminder about truth. Some things are true, and your opinion and mine don’t matter. “I think pi should be 3.1 (or 3.2 as the state of Indiana tried to legislate in 1897).” Nope. Doesn’t work that way. Neither do boys identifying as girls or the other way around. On a television talk show, a panelist said something like, “Parents are understandably upset that their daughters are forced to compete against boys.” To which another panelist said, “They’re not boys!” Uh…yes, they are. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, not a believer as far as I know, took a lot of heat for saying something like, “You don’t get to be a woman by declaring yourself to be one.”

So enjoy a pot pie or piece of pie on Pi Day and remember, there is such a thing as truth.

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. (John 18.37, 38, NIV)

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1.17, NIV)

Yesterday we began to look at “The Servant,” first introduced in Isaiah 42. Today we continue in Isaiah 50 and see, I think for the first time, the Suffering Servant, which will culminate in Isaiah 53. Not a bad section to meditate on during Lent.

Isaiah 50 opens with the Servant’s daily Time with God:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. (Isaiah 50.4, 5, ESV)

A good model: “morning by morning…the Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious…”

Then comes the Suffering Servant part:

I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. (Isaiah 50.6, ESV)

Fulfilled…

Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him…and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. (Matthew 26.67, 27.26, ESV)

And Jesus got through it through strength provided by the Father:

But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. (Isaiah 50.7, ESV)

“I have set my face like a flint” is often conflated with this verse in Luke’s Gospel:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. (Luke 9.51, ESV)

“Set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The “like a flint” comes from Isaiah 50. But knowing what was coming, Jesus persisted. It gets worse as we continue through Isaiah. Stay tuned.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12.1 – 3, ESV)

PS We’re blessed with another Friday 13th! Two months in a row.

We enter into a series of chapters in Isaiah that talk about “The Servant of the Lord.” We already saw him in Isaiah 42. It begins:

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42.1, 2, ESV)

Note the theme: “Justice to the nations.” It continues in chapter 49, which we looked at briefly last week:

And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength— he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49.5, 6, ESV)

Both Jesus and Paul claimed guidance from these verses, and Jesus certainly lived it out. We just watched the episode in The Chosen (Season 2, Episode 1) where Jesus and the disciples are in Samaria, and James and John just want Samaritans to be consumed by fire!

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. (Luke 9.51 – 55, ESV)

“Jesus turned and rebuked them.” Jesus came for everyone, including (hated) Samaritans. The Chosen has Jesus explaining to James and John that it’s hard to reach people if we’re busy calling down destruction on them!

Isaiah was clear that the Good News is for everyone, and Jesus was even clearer in his parting words:

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24.45 – 47, ESV)

All nations, beginning from Jerusalem (because that’s where they were!). Lorne Sanny, the second International President of The Navigators said, “You cannot reach the world starting from where you are not!”

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1.8, ESV)

Jerusalem -> Judea -> Samaria -> to the end of the earth

It’s for everyone and that idea is not new!