Utah Grace

Phil Hughes is the pastor of Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church, located along the majestic Wasatch mountains in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here you will find posts on Jesus, the Bible, jazz music, Benedictines, basketball, and the Oakland Raiders. "Don't let us waste much time gazing at ourselves. A deepened and enriched sense of God is far more important than increased and detailed knowledge of the self." Evelyn Underhill

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To work without praying and without listening means only to grow and spread oneself upward, without striking roots and without an equivalent in the earth.

- Helmut Thielicke

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Giving Up Fear For Lent

Go here to listen to Pastor’s Phil’s sermon on giving up fear.

this is the first in a series of sermons for Lent called “Give It Up”

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You can find Phil Hughes’ recent sermon series on Philippians here

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Merton Monday In fact, our seeking of God is not all a matter of finding him by means of certain ascetic techniques. It is rather a quieting and ordering of our whole life by self-denial, prayer, and good works, so that God himself, who seeks us more than we seek him, can “find us” and “take possession of us.”

Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness

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Merton Monday To keep ourselves spiritually alive we must constantly renew our faith. We are like pilots of fog-bound steamers, peering into the gloom in front of us, listening for the sounds of other ships, and we can only reach our harbor if we keep alert. The spiritual life is, then, first of all a matter of keeping awake. We must not lose our sensitivity to spiritual inspirations. We must always be able to respond to the slightest warning that speak, as though by a hidden instinct, in the depth of the soul that is spiritually alive.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude

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Merton Monday The message of God’s mercy to man must be preached. The word of truth must be proclaimed. No one can deny this. But there are not a few who are beginning to feel the futility of adding more words to the constant flood of language that pours meaninglessly over everybody, everywhere, from morning to night. For language to have meaning there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.

Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions

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Merton Monday In Advent we celebrate the coming and indeed the presence of Christ in our world. We witness to His presence even in the midst of all its inscrutable problems and tragedies. Our Advent faith is not an escape from the world to a misty realm of slogans and comforts which declare our problems to be unreal, our tragedies inexistent… But the fact remains that our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, and not as it might be. The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that His plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to His will. Our Advent is a celebration of this hope.

Thomas Merton, from “Advent: Hope or Delusion?”

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Merton Monday ...what St. Peter was thus telling the hearers of his first sermon on the first Pentecost, was that salvation did not consist in following a method so much as in becoming a member of the People of God, the Body of Christ, and living as a member of that Body, with the life of that People, which is a life of love…The love that is essential for true Christian life involves participation in all the struggles, problems, and aspirations of the Church. To love is to be fully committed to the Church’s work of salvation, the renewal and dedication of [humanity] and [its] society to God. No Christian can remain unconcerned in this work.

Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness

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Merton Monday Until we realize that before a man can become a saint he must first of all be a man in all the humanity and fragility of man’s actual condition, we will never be able to understand the meaning of the word “saint.”

Thomas Merton, Life and Solitude

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On Hiatus

11.13

Utahgrace is on hiatus for the time being.  Merton Mondays will appear weekly.

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Merton Monday Why should I want to be rich, when You were poor? Why should I desire to be famous and powerful in the eyes of men, when the sons of those who exalted the false prophets and stoned the true rejected You and nailed You to the Cross?

Thomas Merton

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Merton Monday If we know how great is the love of Jesus for us we will never be afraid to go to Him in all our poverty, all our weakness, all our spiritual wretchedness and infirmity. Indeed, when we understand the true nature of His love for us, we will prefer to come to Him poor and helpless. We will never be ashamed of our distress. Distress is to our advantage when we have nothing to seek but mercy. We can be glad of our helplessness when we really believe that His power is made perfect in our infirmity. The surest sign that we have received a spiritual understanding of God’s love for us is the appreciation of our own poverty in the light of His infinite mercy.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude

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Windows of Heaven

10.30

This comes from a friend serving the Lord in a Muslim country, and a place where confidence in the gospel is vital.  I thought I would post it out of my respect for this person, and the encouraging words he always writes:

One of my favorite Bible accounts twice uses the phrase “windows in heaven” (2 Kings 7:2,19). It’s a phrase used by a skeptic who, in this case, doubted God’s ability to create a total economic recovery in 24 hours. To be fair, this skeptic – a royal officer – only voices what most people must have thought. Samaria was under a siege so harsh that some had resorted to cannibalism just to survive (2 Kings 6:24-33). Honestly, I can’t even imagine how bad conditions must have been. Could the situation really revert to complete normalcy in just 24 hours?!

Well, yes… when God says so (2 Kings 7:1,16).

The account is extraordinary! Four lepers – outcasts with nothing to lose – discover that the Aramean (Syrian) army has fled in terror, leaving behind all their plunder and wealth. This, of course, was totally the Lord’s doing. They revel in the blessings procured through God’s victory over their enemies. In their delight, they suddenly realize, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news [gospel], but we are keeping silent… let us go and tell…” (vs. 9; parentheses added).

Their news is met with some doubt and skepticism, but a quick verification confirms their report. The city gates are opened and the enemy camp plundered – completing the fastest economic recovery in history.

And the doubting royal officer… saw it but never tasted it. He was trampled to death at the city gate… just as God spoke through His prophet Elisha. Ouch!

Multiple lessons can be gleaned from this account, but I want to focus on just one that we find both challenging and encouraging in this setting. Namely: Never doubt what God can accomplish through the proclamation of the Gospel. Yes, the situation in which we live and work seems impossible – like it will never change. Yes, we’re but beggars who want to share the good news of God’s victorious work with other very needy people. Yes, our report is not believed. But yes, God has spoken… and He has said that on the cross Jesus “purchased men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev. 5:9).

Do we doubt that He could totally transform this place in 24 hours? (Gulp!) Do we doubt what He can accomplish through the faithful proclamation of His Gospel? Paul reminds us that the Gospel is the “power of God for salvation…” (Rom. 1:16). Do we doubt God’s power?!

Honestly, at times I do. Like the royal officer, I look at the situation and can’t imagine things could change… much less change quickly. O God, help my unbelief! Thankfully, God hasn’t dealt with me the same way. Hopefully, I’ll learn from the poor fellow’s example. In the meantime, we also want to emulate those nameless lepers and faithfully share the good news.

Leave it to our great God to teach us of “windows in heaven” from a trampled skeptic and 4 lepers! He’s amazing!

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All Warrior fans feel like this after Steph Curry dropped 40 points in the seasons opener.  But hopefully he will find his stride by Christmas (?!?!)

Thanks to Breathsport and The New York Times for this little gem.

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Good Works

10.28

From last Sunday’s Sermon on the Book of Titus:

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. –  Titus 2:11-14

How zealous – enthusiastic, passionate, obsessed – are we to do good works? I wonder sometimes if we shy away from good deeds for a couple of reasons.

First, I hope we don’t shy away from good deeds because we live in a place where the LDS religion relies so heavily on human effort and works to be right with God.  We don’t do good to save ourselves, to make ourselves worthy, or for the sake of merely being good.  We can’t.

…when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. – Titus 3:4,5

The good we do is just a response to what God has done for us.  Our treatment of others – helping the helpless, being a loving neighbor, serving the poor, forgiving the hostile – is because of how God in Jesus Christ has treated us.

Second, I think a fear of being “good” or “virtuous” has subtly crept into our Christian thinking.  We’ve been put on the defensive by those who say Christians are “too good”, “angelic”, even “self-righteous” and we don’t want to appear that way.  So we show that we can swear, drink, party, tell the off-color joke, just as well as the next person.

Sometimes we have cloaked this with the terms “authentic” or “real”, when all we are doing is just trying to fit in so that there is no rub or cost for being distinct because we belong to the Lord.

We spend more time maintaining our image in a world that could care less about God, than seeking and honoring the God who has come to claim us.  At some point, “no, we aren’t like everyone else.” Yes, there is that thing of being in the world but not of it.  But don’t forget the “not of it” part.

It’s true, some have made Christianity into things we don’t do: don’t smoke, drink or swear and you are OK.  Of course, this isn’t the faith of Jesus Christ at all.

And then there are those who profess to be people of Jesus Christ but live totally contrary to a life with him.  Paul called this out in Titus.

“They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions.  They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.” – Titus 1:16

  Strong stuff.

Real Christianity is about an event – the coming of Jesus Christ.  And real Christian living is about how we respond to that.  It is living lives that reflect the character of God.

We are to say “no” to the dominant values of a culture that does not recognize God.  It takes courage and spiritual guts to say “no” in our culture.  “No, I am not going to watch that, I’m not going to participate in that, I’m not going there.”

 I think it took courage for those Christians in Crete to say “no” to things there. But we aren’t just saved from something.  We are saved for something.  Being Christ’s people is to be a people who do and live certain things.  We are to say “yes” and be zealous for good works, “energetic in goodness” , eager to do good.

Jesus said we will be known by our fruits.

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Nun 1: We went to this instead of staying home and watching the Mets?

Nun 2: Our ministry is mercy, Sister.

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Merton Monday For when Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was to be won by violence, He meant that it could only be bought at the price of certain risks. And sooner or later, if we follow Christ we have to risk everything in order to gain everything. We have to gamble on the invisible and risk all that we can see and taste and feel. But we know the risk is worth it, because there is nothing more insecure than the transient world. For this world as we see it is passing away (I Cor. 7:31).

Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude