Some things are so simple they are hard to understand! Some things are so direct and obvious that we don’t want to accept them as they are. We want to make them complicated.
Have you ever tried to describe to someone how to tie a shoestring? It seems simple until you start to teach it. Left over right, under with the left, pull both strings until tight, loop on the left, wrap with the right, loop in the hole, pull the loops -- what a mess! It’s so simple, and yet it’s hard to understand and even harder to teach. So many things are so simple they are hard to understand.
They tell me that computer programs are written with nothing but zeroes and ones. They are the simplest form of logic, either yes or no. And yet I assure you I do not understand computer programming. It’s not that it’s so complicated. It is that it is too simple. My mind wants more than just lines of zeroes and ones. So many things are so simple they are hard to grasp.
Living life God’s way is so simple that most of us cannot understand it. Living life God’s way is so clear that we won’t accept it. We go off trying to make it more complicated than it really is. We have thousands of laws, hundreds of customs, scores of etiquette rules – why does it really matter where you put the knife and the fork anyway? – and, on top of all of that, we have expectations. Do you know what I mean by expectations? I mean all those things that we are expected to do if we want to fit in. If you are going to fit in with the tailgate party crowd, you need to know how to manhandle your ribs and how to guzzle your beer! If you are going to fit in with teenagers, you’d better know which band is cool today – and it’s not the one that was cool yesterday. Fitting in. We even have expectations here at church, don’t we? The unwritten rules for being at church – when to stand and when to sit, when to sing and when to sit, when to clap your hands and when to sit. Does it sound like when to sit is the most important thing? Oh, you know how to be church folks. You know the fitting in rules. But they can be complicated.
But none of that has anything to do with living God’s way. Living God’s way is so simple that we don’t want to accept it. Over against our gazillions of laws and customs, God hands us Ten Commandments, short and simple, and then, as if even that is too much, Jesus simplifies the ten down to two. Love God and love your neighbor; do that and you’ve got it!
And if you respond that nothing is really THAT simple, I say again that some things are so simple they are hard to understand. Because we do not understand, let alone commit, we get ourselves all knotted up in needless complications. Because we are afraid of committing to the simplicity of God’s way of life, we go instead for messy, burdensome ways. We get lost in the thicket.
Back in the 19th Century a group of people made a decision for the simple life. The group was called the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. They were commonly called the Shakers, because when they worshipped, they became so full up they literally shook. The Shakers are about gone now, but they left us a legacy of beautifully simple furniture, wonderful clear architecture, and music that takes us straight to God. The best known of the simple songs of these plain folk is called “’Tis the Gift to be Simple”. It will be our theme for this message.
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.
[Repeat]
Simplicity. The church at Thyatira had had a good thing going. In their earliest days they had known who they were, they had known what to do, they had a simple, straightforward way of life. The Lord says that He knows their works – love, faith, service, and patient endurance. Very clear. And it was working. He says, “I know that your last works are greater than the first.” It was going well.
But all of a sudden things got complicated. Things heated up. And the simplicity of their life together was threatened. I want you to see the stuff that invaded Thyatira. It is serious when we are tempted to forget the simple things of life in Christ. True happiness is found in living simply. But Thyatira was in danger of forgetting. Yet, as the Shakers taught us to sing:
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.
I
Notice, first, that if we don’t commit to simplicity, we’ll get tangled up in a thicket of theological confusion. We’ll get caught up in abstract theories and doctrinal propositions and lose the real meaning of it all. When we leave simplicity, when being “correct” takes over from love and faith, service and patience, we get all bound up in ideas and philosophies that go nowhere. The Lord says to the church at Thyatira,
“I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants…”
We don’t know who this was who was teaching and beguiling believers at Thyatira. Evidently she described what she was teaching as “deep”. But the Lord says that the truth is these are the deep things of Satan! This teacher was infecting the church at Thyatira by leading the people into ideas that led nowhere, teaching theologies that consumed their energies but helped nobody.
Now don’t hear me suggesting that ignorance is bliss. It isn’t. Ignorance is ignorance, and is unhappy. You won’t get very far with me if you try to argue some point with me by saying, “I don’t know much about the Bible, but …”. I’ll cut you off in a New York minute and tell you that you’d better get some knowledge about the Bible! No, the Lord is not telling us to be ignorant. Nor is He counseling us not to think. Those who are in my Sunday morning Basics class or my Wednesday evening Disciple class know that I’ve told you it will take us about fifty years to get through all we ought to learn!
But sometimes we use our ignorance as an excuse for not doing much of anything. Sometimes we refuse to take leadership for some ministry because, we say, we don’t know enough. Well and good, but let’s not use needing to know more as an excuse to sit back and do nothing. The Lord says to the church at Thyatira, “You had a good thing going. It was simple and clear. ‘I know your works – love, faith, service, and patient endurance.’ But then you let in this notion that you needed to go deeper before you could do anything. You went to class after class. You enrolled in Bible studies. You took notes on sermons. You downloaded articles. You accumulated ideas. But you never used any of it. You sat back and thought deep thoughts, but never used what you knew for love and faith, service and patience. And when you did all that, you were not one iota more clear about how to live than you were before. You would not commit to the simple truths on which all the deep things are built. You would not simply turn to the fundamentals of love and faith and service and patience and do them first. Commit to these and then you can learn. But if you go out and seek ideas and theories first, with no basic commitment to God’s way of life, there will be nothing but confusion.
I have always loved Stephen Leacock’s story, “The Retroactive Existence of Mr. Juggins”. In that whimsical story, Mr. Juggins falls in love with a deeply spiritual young woman. But he feels he is not ready to ask her for marriage, because he doesn’t know enough about the Bible. So Mr. Juggins sets out to learn the Bible. He memorizes the names of its books. He commits to memory the roll of patriarchs and judges. He learns in chronological order the kings of Israel, and begins to work on the kings of Judah. He spends untold months on this project, trying to learn it all. But, to his chagrin, before he can finish, the lady of his dreams has up and married a man who doesn’t know Moses from Methusaleh! You see, Mr. Juggins didn’t commit to simple things, like, “I love you.” He made it all too complicated. He made it all ideas.
Learn, yes. Dig into the Bible, of course. But do not hold off doing something for the Kingdom until you understand it all. If you wait until you understand it all, you will never do a thing. But if you commit to the basic simplicities of love and faith and service and patience, you will find tremendous joy. Think of those brush arbor churches where the slaves could get away from the burning of the noonday heat and the burden of the day. Sons and daughters of Africa, sweltering under the oppression of slavery, seldom able to read or write. There was much they did not know. But this one thing they knew, and sang: that God would make a way out of no way, that Jesus was a redeemer, and that they were the children of the highest. Simple and clear, powerful and uplifting. Simplicity.
It is said of the late theologian Karl Barth, who wrote a shelf of thick books that delved into every aspect of the Christian faith, that he was once asked what was the finest thought he had ever had. Without hesitation, the author of treatises that challenge the finest minds of Christendom said, “The greatest thought I have ever had was this: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Simplicity.
How beautiful and how fulfilling to cut through it all and commit to simple love and faith, simple service and patience. For you know the song:
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.
II
But that does not exhaust the issue. For the issue with forgetting to be simple is not just an intellectual one. It’s not just about ideas. It’s about inner selves. It’s about the core of our being. It’s about dealing with those inner urges that nag at us. When you commit to simplicity, you are no longer tied up with the things that you thought you had to have in order to enjoy life. When you commit to simplicity, life is no longer about being pampered. Those things don’t matter any more. They are not even interesting. Not if you commit to Gospel simplicity, like love and faith and service and patience.
This Thyatira story is a sexy passage of Scripture, isn’t it? It’s a little embarrassing to read out loud all this about fornication and beds of adultery.
“I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who is … beguiling my servants to practice fornication.”
Let me broaden the picture. This passage is speaking about more than sexual misconduct. It is speaking about self-indulgence. It is speaking about how we want a high old time. This passage is speaking about how we run away from Gospel simplicity to search for excitement. When we forget simplicity, then we are push with more and more intensity to satisfy the desire for excitement. We want thrills. And guess what? The harder you drive for excitement, the more elusive it becomes. The harder you push for thrills, the more difficult it is to feel anything. And it is all a cruel illusion.
That’s what is down below the complaint against the people of Thyatira. It is not just that they got down and dirty sexually. It is that, but it is more than that. It is that they thought that by indulging their every whim they could find satisfaction. It is that they thought that thrills were an end in themselves.
I treasure those hours when I can sit down with you and listen to the flutterings in your soul. I find that I am less and less interested in talking ideas and more and more interested in feeling with you into the hidden places of the heart. What I so often find there is that we have made our hearts too complex. We have taken into ourselves burdens of guilt and bundles of shame, even though the Lord says, “I love you.” We have gone after the things we thought would make us feel good: some have gone for money, some for a prestige job. Some have wandered off from their families and imagined that somebody over there would make them happier. Some have even asked for a religion that makes them feel better, thinking that if only we could be in a place where the choir lifts us out of our seats and the keyboard’s rhythms wind us into a froth and the preacher’s palpitations propel us into paroxysms – if only we could just have church here – that is a terrible illusion indeed. For in the quiet of the counseling room I hear you telling me that when the drink is worn off and the sexual partner goes home, when the job is too much and the echoes of worship have faded, you are the same old same old. Nothing has changed. Like Willy Loman in the play, “Death of a Salesman”, you still feel kind of temporary about yourself.
Brothers and sisters: simplicity. Do not look for thrills. Stay with simple love, complete faith, genuine service, quiet patience. Author Kent Nerburn, in his little book, “Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace”, tells of being in a courtroom, where a young man was on trial for the brutal murder of a young girl – a child the young man didn’t even know, but he just took her life for the thrill of it. The murdered child’s father sat through the trial, looking at the face of the young killer. When the trial was over and the young man was convicted, the father was invited to speak. He stood and said, “Young man, I will visit you in jail. I will visit you because you and I are forever bound to one another. We need to know each other. I do not think I can forgive you. But perhaps if I know you I will not hate you. This is about healing and reconciliation.” Oh, great God. Most of us would indulge our lust for hatred. Most of us would nurse our hurt and churn up resentment. Most of us would commit spiritual adultery. But one man heard a calling to simplicity: love and faith, service and patience. Forgiveness. In his heart there was a song that would never end. You know how it goes:
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.
III
My prayer today is that we might simplify. That we might walk away from the clutter in our minds and the guilt in our hearts. My prayer is that we might learn how just to be. Not to fly high, just to be. Not to get happy, just to be. My prayer is that we commit to simplicity.
Several years back I visited a pastor friend to discuss an idea I had for working together on a ministry. He cut our conversation short. He said, “At this time in my life I am not looking for anything new to do.” I was offended by that; I thought it selfish and lazy. But I’ve come to see that my friend had learned the art of simplicity. He knew who he was; he knew what God’s call to him was; and he was bent on doing that and that alone. Keeping life simple and direct, focused on love and faith, on service and patience.
Tomorrow I will become an official senior citizen. My Medicare card is in the mail and I no longer have to ask if I’m eligible for senior discounts. No doubt about it. I’m there. It makes me feel the importance of simplicity. Paul said, “This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind ..” I have usually said, “This thing I do, and this, and this, and that over there, and tomorrow I will add two more.” But now the time has come to focus. The days are shorter now, and night comes, when no man can work. If ever I wanted prestige, that’s gone now. If ever I had ambitions to set the woods on fire with hot preaching, that’s over. If ever I imagined that I could be so everlastingly cool that everybody who is anybody would seek out my golden nuggets of wisdom, that’s gone too. Like Dr. King, I have come to the place in my life where I must say, “I just want to do God’s will”. And I know what that will is. I know it is love and faith, and service and patience. I know it because the Lord says it,
“I do not lay on you any other burden; only hold fast to what you have until I come.” “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”
Simplicity is what I need, because my heart sings, ‘’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word; just in simple faith to plunge me neath the healing, cleansing flood.” “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”
I know, with the Psalmist, that such knowledge is too wonderful; it is high; I cannot attain to it. But I also know, with Moses, that God’s command is not too hard, nor is it too far away. The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”
I know that simplicity is something to which I must commit. Not something to agree to, but something to commit to. Not something to dabble in, but something to hold fast. And this I must do, without doubts or fears. Questions, yes. But no doubts or fears. Needs, of course. But no doubts or fears. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” Simple love, simple faith, simple service, and simple patience. For:
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.
“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”
