Urban Reformation

Yesterday I attended the funeral of Luke Hausmann. This family from the outward fruit and countenance continue to demonstrate Christ, even in this incredibly difficult time in their lives. One person described the “accident” that took place as, “unbelievable, one moment there and the next moment something falling from the sky to take his life.” This is a bit of a paraphrase.What I saw in this young man’s life from his funeral is a young man who had an “Uncommon” obedience to his father. A passion and love for the Lord Jesus Christ and a personal genuine desire to see the gospel of Jesus Christ extended to the ends of the earth. It was noticeable, in the upwards of five to six hundred attendees at the funeral that Luke was well loved, and had impacted many lives in his short 23 years.

At 23, this young man had been used by God to completely help transform another young man who otherwise would be on a very different path. Luke also started his own painting business in town and in this endeavor he saved up his money not for the things of this world but to spend the money to build schools and bring the love of Christ into other countries, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Thailand.

So as I was wrapping my mind around a 23 year old entrepreneur/missionary’s life being taken and in my reading this morning my mind did a backdrop, and of the state of “The visible Church” in America, even in our own doctrinally oriented congregation, as compared to what this young man not only was doing, but was living before men.

We have much to be made aware of in our continual seeking and attempting to be satisfied in this life by the things of this world.

It makes Luke’s life and yes even his death in this life seem all the more inspiring to me. Either we will truly remember what God has done in our lives and what he’s doing, and we will fill ourselves with the living waters of Jesus Christ and be moved to action by Christ and who Christ is, or we will continue to hew out broken cisterns for ourselves which hold no water, and we will never be satisfied.

So I’m reading this morning in a lesson:

Jeremiah 2:13

For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

God was Israel’s fountain of living waters, where God delivered them from Egyptian bondage; He led them through the wilderness wanderings and also brought them into the land of milk and honey – Jeremiah 2:6-7

We have such short memories, and we forget what God has done, why is it we need reminded so often? From the beginning with their own priests and rulers they forgot, and as we can tell our leaders today have forgotten their God. Although they are still acknowledging God they aren’t acknowledging that you can know Him, or how to lead, by the true standard of the living God.

And from one generation to the next, each generation passes and we forget unlike other nations that were true to their gods – Jeremiah 2:8-11 I think how loyal so many of the others are to their God’s who are creations of man. The J.W.s in the city, the Mormons, the Buddhist, and last but not least the Muslims are plenty, and faithful to their congregations in the inner city, and I imagine the burbs as well. I mourn sometimes that we worship the one true living God the creator, and not the creation of man and yet we show ourselves not strong, and often not even weak (that the Lord may be shown strong), but we do not show ourselves at all.

We are careful to wrap our worldly idols, (overeating, covetousness, materialism etc) in sweet small Christian looking justifications as to ease our conscience but in doing so we are “commonly disobedient” to our Father in Heaven.

We forsake our God, the fountain of living waters hewing for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water, cisterns were tanks for rain water, hewn (cut) out of stone, at best, they could only offer stagnant water.

Consider this Spurgeon quote:

“Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of sin, and, finding them all to be vanity and emptiness, they will become very perplexed and disappointed. But they will continue their fruitless search. Though wearied, they still stagger forward under the influence of spiritual madness, and though there is no result to be reached except that of everlasting disappointment, yet they press forward. They have no forethought for their eternal state; the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of earth’s broken cisterns, hoping to find water where not a drop was ever discovered yet.” — C.H. Spurgeon

This to me as a backdrop to Luke Hauseman’s physical death unto “gain” (Phil. 1:21), shows the sinfulness of fallen man, and absolute beauty of the redeemer to use Luke’s life to touch hearts of men. Luke unlike so many of the youth and adults of this day who try to drink out of these broken cisterns, obeyed his father Dave Hausmann and His Father in Heaven, so much so that in his life, Dave was speaking to his pastor even before this tragedy had occurred, in admiration of his own son. This is a testimony, which is dear, that a Father would see the value of a son’s life and his love for Christ marvel the handy work of his Father in Heaven.

We as a nation and in the “said” community of Christendom in the U.S. continue to forget our God, and seek after that which does not satisfy, it makes Luke Hausemann’s obedience to his father and His heavenly father that much more brilliant like a diamond against a black velvet backdrop that sparkles for the whole world to see. May Christ be Glorified in Luke’s death and may we remember Luke’s example as he pointed others to Christ.

Please Continue to Pray for the Hausmann Family.

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