The True Grace of God

Successful politicians become successful politicians because they are adroit at telling people what they want to hear. Unfortunately, sometimes that is also the case for preachers. Churches sometimes grow because they become skillful in finding what people want to hear... and they tell them. What passes as church growth is too often more stealing sheep from other folds rather than saving the lost lambs. Maybe you do that by having building better programs or bigger buildings. Or maybe you do that by convincing people that your church is “the one true church” while others are simply pretenders. Or maybe you convince them that God will make them healthy and wealthy if they listen (and give) to you. Why do so many of the T.V. preachers stress this health-n-wealth, name-it-and-claim-it heresy? Well, it’s not because the promise to make us rich is writ large on every page of the Bible. No, it’s because that message plays well in the mass market! Paul speaks of this market-driven church growth model in 2 Timothy 4:3 (NLT)

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear.

People want to hear about the grace of God, but not necessarily about the true grace of God. Too many see  God’s grace as license. Oh, maybe not to the point of some of Paul’s critics who saw grace as excuse to keep on sinning so grace could increase (Rom 3:8, 6:1). But they (maybe we?) see grace as permission  not to sweat over the details of faith. All we have to do is get close and grace will male up the difference. All you have to do is make a somewhat honest effort and grace closes the gap.  And then when it comes down to making the hard choices of discipleship, we can defer and play the grace “get out of jail card.”  Grace means that we don't have to sweat the small stuff and that it's all small stuff.

Peter seems to have a different idea.  He calls us to “the true grace of God” in 1 Peter 5:12, and in the verses that precede, he describes this true grace with a hard edge--

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:8-10)

The true grace of God is about standing firm in the face of the opposition to the devil and suffering hardship and persecution as you entrust yourself to His eventual vindication and salvation. That is the true grace of God. That grace comes to us through the cross and that grace calls us to the cross. And that kind of grace doesn't attract huge following on religion television. James Thompson in his marvelous book on 1 Peter entitled The Church in Exile, says this—

Whenever Christians have forgotten that walking in the steps of Jesus is costly, 1 Peter has been a forgotten book. The "true grace of God" hardly seems necessary for communities which are rich in their own resources. Where membership in the family of God is offered at bargain-basement prices, the message of 1 Peter is sure to be irrelevant, for only alien communities will find that this book still speaks a word of encouragement.

Several years ago after one particularly difficult time in getting people to volunteer for church ministry and even having several drop out of church almost-altogether, my wife sighed, "Maybe you've preached too much on grace." I don't think I over-preached  grace.  But I am afraid that I didn't preach well enough on the true grace of God. The true grace of God is the grace of the cross—not just the cross that Jesus died upon but the cross we are called to die upon along with Him.

Blast from the Past

We’re in the middle of "vacation season" at Denbigh. Roger and Keri are gone this week; Lynn and I will be gone will be gone next week. And we aren't alone. Most of our church is from other places, so when they get time off they go to those other places. It looked like half the church was out of town yesterday, but we also had a ton of guests as well.

One of our guests yesterday told me, “I was in on the vote on whether to hire you.” Steve and Linda Howell were members at Denbigh back in the early eighties.  Lynn and I came to Denbigh in May of 1980 to work as the youth minister and intern under Lloyd Unsell, but Lloyd left Denbigh several months after I got here to move to Oklahoma to be nearer his family. The elders asked me to preach on an interim basis while they found a new pulpit guy. They never found a new guy largely because they never really looked, and I kept filling in.  After a year or two or three (memories of the timeframe vary), they decided I was doing an OK job (given their low expectations,), and offered me the position. And Steve was evidently here for that vote.  So thanks, Howell's for the vote of confidence all those years ago. And thanks for all the nice things you said yesterday.

Steve and Linda represent a large part about what ministry at Denbigh have been through the years. Because of our close proximity to multiple military installations, we have had a steady stream of people coming in and going out through the years. Several years ago, Roger did a congregational study and discovered that almost half of our church had been here 2 years or less. So we have people for 3-4 years and then start all over with a new batch. Sometimes it seems that just when everyone is on the same page, the book changes, and we start all over again. So it’s good to run across people you haven’t seen for 30 (or more) years that say they appreciate what you did and what you are doing.

Camp Idlewild 2011

Another Middle School Week at Camp Idlewild is in the books. This was a watershed week for many of our campers; the huge Middle School group with which we started three years ago had their last hurrah.  Next year they move up to Teen Week. In fact, several of them didn't wait for next year-- Rachel, Olivia and Kristina all went back for a second week. In the 40 years or so I have been going to camp, I never went back-to-back weeks.

We had a great week. With the exception of Wally Nooner (our head cook extraordinaire), our entire staff came from Denbigh and almost half (15 of 31) of our campers were either from Denbigh or recent Denbigh alumni. So camp week is a big event for our church family (we cancelled services Sunday and Wednesday night and invited our people over to camp). My thanks foes to our staff volunteers Roger Brown, Annette Vitello, Lynne Bean, Beverly Becker, Jennifer Glaspell, Bruce Gaynon, Joann Guthrie, Betty Tanner, Wally Nooner, Lynn Tucker, Sarah Mattingly, Angela Johnson, Mark Becker, Nathan Tanner, Dawn Tanner, Tressa Tucker, Angelynn Tucker and Tori Light. (This was the first year ever that Lynn, Tressa, Angelynn and I were all at camp together.)

The week was HOT. Temperatures at the beginning of the week were in the low to mid 90's, but it didn't take long for us to get over 100, and the heat index was near 120 on several of those days. We changed around the schedule so that outside activities were in the morning and Bible classes were in the afternoon. The kids were great; they went along with all the activities as if the heat didn't bother them. Last year we had all kinds of camper drama and trips to the emergency room; this year was pretty quiet and boring... just like I like it.

If you have never spent time at a Christian camp during the summer, then you have missed one of life's special experiences. And if you have never spent a week at Camp Idlewild... let me know and I'll add you to the staff waiting list for next year!

Should We Stop Evangelizing?

I was once in Zhitomir, Ukraine as one of the speakers in a seminar for Ukrainian Christians and church leaders. We had a good group of Ukrainian believers, several of whom had traveled cross-country by train, to hear some Americans teaching about a Jewish Messiah who came to save the whole world. Right before the seminar was to begin, a delegation from Kiev showed up demanding to know why our little church in Zhitomir allowed women to speak in church as our translators (well, because they were fluent in both English and Russian) and why we used alcoholic wine in communion (well, because that is the “fruit of the vine” that we could actually purchase in Zhitomir; the one time we tried to buy grape juice, it turned out not to be grape at all but some kind of strange “banana-juice” concoction). We were there to talk about Jesus, but these defenders of the faith wanted to talk about their version of church that could not include female translators or fermented wine.

I thought about that story as I read a CNN editorial by Carl Medearis entitled “Why Evangelicals Should Stop Evangelizing.” The general idea of the article is that Christians have spent so much time recreating their churches on the mission field that we have become impediments to actually talking about Jesus. Medearis is a former missionary and church planter who thinks we should stop spreading "Christianity" and spend more time talking about Jesus himself. Medearis seems to be saying that we need to stop trying to make Muslims into Christians and spend more time encouraging them to be more like Jesus. Among the Lebanese people he worked with, the most violent and fierce of the armed militias driving the violence there were the “Christian” militias. They didn’t look anything like Jesus, of course, but they were “Christian.” Sometimes missionaries (and preachers) like my friend in Keiv, simply recreate their own church structures and compete with other groups who are recreating their own church structures. In other words, they become just like churches back home—competing for converts to their system and not looking too much like Jesus in the process.

I think Medearis has a point. He’s wrong, of course, but he has a point. Jesus is still the only other name under heaven by which people are to be saved (Acts 4:12) and faith in Jesus means accepting him as “the way, the truth and the life” that is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). No Muslim can be Muslim and believe that about Jesus. For while it is true that “there is no God but God,” it is not true that “Mohammed is his prophet.” Getting Muslims to think and act more like Jesus is great, and getting Christians to more gentle and patient with non-believers is not only great but gospel (Col 4:6). But getting people to heaven requires faith in Jesus.

But over the course of history, nothing has gotten in the way of faith in Jesus more than has Christianity. When believers in Christ do things that are not at all Christ-like in the name of Christ, then that just isn’t helpful. We have to live like Jesus to give meaning to our message about Jesus. Maybe we do need to get over some of our fixation on the external structures that go along with our experience of Christianity (which sometimes create barriers where none should exist) and spend more time pointing to the crucified one and living the crucified life.

Medearis says that evangelicals should stop evangelizing. That’s not right. What evangelicals (whoever they are) should stop is seeing their traditions, politics, or economic ideology as having anything to do with the gospel. Christianity is Christ. And maybe there is a sense in which Christianity is Christ alone.  Maybe we should make our evangelism more about Christ?

That's Just Nuts

I must begin by confessing that I don’t really follow politics all that closely. Well, that’s not completely true; I generally spend some time reading/skimming through articles on the web from such varied sources as Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post. I consider myself pretty much a political  moderate, and while I have always voted Republican in national elections, I do occasionally cross the aisle in  state elections. When really pushed for my philosophy on politics, I’d probably describe myself as a “Progressive Lipscombian.” (If you don't know what that means... good).  Politics is ultimately about power, and power is generally antithetical to the Kingdom of God. I also suspect that Will Rogers was onto something when he suggested that anyone who could be elected president is probably not qualified to serve.

OK, I say all that because I don’t want it to seem that I’m coming at this from any political perspective. I am definitely not a tea-party member (though if someone starts a coffee-party, I’d be more interested). But the latest brouhaha (and there have been many) over Michele Bachmann caught my attention. It seems that Bachmann has touted her presidential qualifications by pointing out that she and her husband are small business owners and that small businesses are the key to getting our economy back where it needs to be (no argument there). But CNN’s Jim Acosta and Erika Dimmler jump on the fact that the small business being referred to is a Christian counseling clinic where, along with many other things, counselors make use of "reparative therapy." This is where homosexuals who don’t want to be homosexuals are counseled in such a way to help not practice homosexuality. Things like prayer, Bible study, and personal mentoring are used to help people who so desire to "rewire" themselves sexually. If these people can't overcome the homosexual orientation, they they are given tools to help them live celibate lives. That, of course, proves that Michele Bachmann is a kook and not qualified to be president.

Bachmann may be a kook and not qualified to be president, but to use her counseling clinic as proof of that fact is just nuts. What if a homosexual person truly believes that their homosexuality is a sin before God? What if they would like to stop practicing homosexuality? It’s a free country, right? Don’t they have the freedom to NOT be homosexual if they can do that? No one is suggesting snatching gays and lesbians off the street and forcing them into reparative therapy, right? People are making the free-will choice that, based upon their religious belief, they don’t want to practice homosexuality. And to help them with their free-will choice, they are looking for counseling help in changing their sexual orientation (which is very hard) or their sexual behavior (which is very possible). The editorial stance of the article seems to be that if you are gay then you have NO RIGHT to try not to be gay or to get help in not being gay. The culture seems to believe that homosexuals must be free to be gay but cannot be allowed to choose not to be gay? That’s just nuts.

I’m not going to vote for Michele Bachman (unless she names Bob Turner of NY as her running mate. I’d HAVE to vote for a “Bachmann-Turner” ticket, especially if they had “Taking Care of Business” as their campaign song/slogan). But the idea that it is someone wrong to providing counseling to homosexual people who don’t want to be practicing homosexuals? That’s just nuts.

A Hill Worth Dying On

Earlier this year, 11 Iranians Christians were arrested and charged with “activities against the order of the country.” Specifically, they were charge with drinking wine… communion wine during a Christian worship service. These Christ-followers knew that they were risking their lives and freedom to remember Jesus in this act of worship. They were released in May, thanks in large part to public outcry from the West. These persecuted Christians believed that communing around the Lord’s table with other believers and with the Lord Himself was important—important enough to risk all.

Contrast their solemn faith with some of the disagreements that believers have had over the observance of communion through the years.

• Presence: Is the body and blood of Jesus literally present? Is it spiritually present? Is bread and wine only a visual aid to focus our thoughts or does something spiritually happen in communion?
  
• President: Who is qualified to administer communion. Must one be ordained? Must one be a bishop or can a deacon preside over a communion service. Can anyone preside? Can a woman preside?
  
• Participants: Who can eat of the Lord’s Table? Must one be a member of the local body? Can visitors partake? What about the children of members?
  
• Providers: Must deacons distribute communion after it has been blessed? Can only baptized believers “pass the plates” or can the “pre-baptized” participate? Can women serve at the Lord’s table?
  
• Presentation: Must there be only one cup? Must that cup contain fermented wine? Can the cup contain fermented wine? Must unleavened bread be used?

This list of communion issues is by no means exhaustive, but it is indeed exhausting. The kinds of things we have invented over which to feud and fuss is amazing. This picking of nits over communion split the Reformation itself, and it has split many churches through the centuries, some of which I have personal knowledge. But those 11 Iranian Christians never would have even considered those kinds of issues. When you are risking your life for something, you make sure that it counts. If you are going to take a bullet (literally or figuratively), you need to make sure it’s worth it. You must choose carefully the hill on which you’re willing to die.

Jesus died on the hill of Calvary. There is no issue worth taking a bullet for that is not directly connected to what Jesus did there. May God forgive us for all the blood we have spilled on hills that were not worth dying on.

Soaked in Blood

I remember reading of one denomination that undertook a major revision of its hymnal. Churches revising hymnals is certainly nothing unusual. In fact, if we tell people to take out a hymnal, we have to explain that we mean the old maroon book covered in dust underneath the chair in front of them (we usually just sing “off the wall.”)  But the reason for this particular revision of this particular denominational hymnal was to remove or revise all of those old hymns that seem so fixated on “blood.” You know the hymns—“Nothing But the Blood,” “Power in the Blood,” “Alas! And Did my Savior Bleed,” and “Have You Been to Jesus” (“Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”). Their thinking was that modern sensitivities are too prim and proper to respond or relate to this obsession in these old hymns with blood. Most modern urban people can't relate to “Bringing in the Sheaves,” and neither can they relate to this emphasis on blood.  So we'll just avoid those songs altogether.

Frankly, there are some biblical allusions that I try to avoid. For example, I can’t remember ever preaching on the spiritual significance of the dowry Saul required of David for the hand of his daughter Michal (1 Sam 18:25). And then there’s the story of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 18 that is pretty gross as well. But as offensive as the topic of blood might be to modern sensitivities, there is simply no way to tell the gospel story without stressing the fact that the whole story is saturated in blood. Patty Kirk puts it this way in her spiritual memoir Amateur Believer--

The problem of Jesus' blood—what Catholics would appropriately call a mystery—is that it means everything. Not merely the blood covering Jesus when he suffered at our hands, but the gorier blood of our uncleanness—our urges and our hatreds, our humanness—that Jesus assumed when he died for us. It is the blood of our sin as well as the blood sprinkled to cleanse us of sin. The blood of the Israelites' sacrifices. The blood they smeared on their doorjambs to protect their firstborn children from death when the Lord passed over Egypt.

The blood we drink in celebrating communion represents the very essence of Jesus' dual identity as God and man. From his earthly beginning, even as a fetus deep in Mary's uterus, nurtured by the nutrients from her blood, Jesus drew life from his own unique blood, blood mysteriously human and divine simultaneously, special blood that made him the living Son of God and also, incomprehensibly, one of us, the Son of Man.

Communion evokes the bitter wine vinegar offered Jesus on the cross and also the wine we will drink with him in heaven. His death and his resurrection to eternal life. The spilled blood of our guilt and the pulsing blood of our hope. Sin. Sacrifice. Celebration. Blood is at the very core of our faith.

If people really are offended by the story of the blood of the cross, then you just might be telling the story correctly. Paul talks about “the offense of the cross” in Galatians 5:11. (That’s the verse before Paul wishes those who insisted that all be circumcised to follow Jewish tradition would just go ahead and castrate themselves; evidently Paul wasn't too concerned with our sensibilities, modern or otherwise).

The gospel is a story that is soaked in blood; you can't tell the gospel without it.  And you can't sing the gospel with the blood either.

A Truly Forgettable Sermon

Someone told me Sunday that while they thought that my sermon was particularly well done (thank you very much), they were pretty sure that no one would remember the sermon (so why should last Sunday be any different from usual?).  Nope, what people would remember was the YouTube Father's Day video "Dad Life" that I "borrowed" (ripped off) as a tribute to our fathers.  This was actually last year's video from Church on the Move in Tulsa, OK.  I'm sure their video this year was also well done and perhaps I'll "borrow" it next year.

Well the prophecy came true this morning when someone (no names, Michele) Face-booked me and asked for-- not my sermon notes or mp3 of my SERMON-- but the link for the video so their hubby could watch it.  So here it is.  Maybe if I made my own videos people would remember my sermons better!

Heart Improvement

You might recognize actor and comedian Jim Labriola from his recurring role on the hit TV show “Home Improvement.” These days Labriola makes his living as a Christian comedian, performing for people who specifically are looking for "clean entertainment." But in his bad old days, Labriola did stand up comedy the way it is expected from stand-up comedians— "injecting a few curse words here and there with a mixture of sexual innuendos added to the punch line."

And then he met Jesus. He was invited by his sister-in-law to a non-denominational church "where people raised their hands and were happy." He said of the preacher, "I never heard a guy talk so much about Jesus almost as if he knew him personally." He continued to go to the church, got to know some people and a few months later decided to give his life to Jesus. But when you give your life to Jesus, Jesus doesn't just leave you alone. Jesus takes us "Just As I Am," but He never leaves us this way. Labriola read from Ephesians 5:4, "Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving." He decided that this verse was speaking directly to him. "I can't just read the Bible and go up on stage and do the opposite." So he cleaned up his act… literally.

Today he performs for churches and Christian gatherings, but also in secular settings. He was surpsied how many people appreciated his “clean humor.” People come thank him for the option of taking their families to a comedy show “without the overlaying fear of listening to an uncomfortable joke while sitting next to your grandma.” His newest CD is entitled "Heart Improvement."

The problem with going to the doctor is that he doesn’t want to just fix whatever ache or pain we are complaining about that day. He also wants us to lose weight, get our blood pressure and cholesterol under control and a myriad of other things we just as soon he not mess with. And that is the way it is with the Great Physician. When we come to Him, he wants to change everything about us that is contrary to our spiritual health. We can’t compartmentalize our lives so that we have one set of values for work and career and entertainment and another one for church and family. Jesus wants us all, and that means that everything has to change. That’s not easy, but that is the deal.

Reasons for NOT Not Going to Church

We had a very blessed day at Denbigh yesterday.  We had a larger number of people present, which is good since we are getting into our summer-slump time.  We had former members and down-the-street-neighbors (the Birkenbuel's) back visiting with us, and that was good.  We honored a family that was leaving us (the Higgins); it's sad that they are leaving but good we got to thank them.  Mary Robinson made a presentation of an beautiful quilt to Janice Barker to let Ben and Janice know we are thinking of them.  And we prayed with Brenda and Sammy for them to get through their grand-baby's funeral today (and raised more than enough money to pay the cemetery). The worship was great (we sang all Fanny J. Crosby or Dennis Jernigan songs, an interesting combination that somehow seemed to work). My Bible class was on sex and I got to wear a funny hat in the middle of my sermon.  It really was a great day!

We began the service with this YouTube video entitled "Reasons (Why People Don't Come to Church)."  The video is produced by the Central Christian Church in Las Vegas (hey, if you don't want me borrowing your creativity, then don't post it on YouTube).  I thought it was a pretty good summary of what we are called to be as a church.



After yesterday, I felt very blessed that God has placed me in the church here at Denbigh.  We are far from perfect, but I think we do a pretty good job of meeting people where they are and letting them know that while socks are optional, grace isn't... and that it's OK not to be OK... really.

My How Time Flies

Lynn and I were blown away yesterday as our church honored us for our 31st anniversary at Denbigh with a dinner after church (including two HUGE cakes) and a painting-style picture of our Denbigh church family (now hanging in my office). Lynn and I came to Denbigh as the associate/youth minister in May of 1980 (this picture was taken a few months after our arrival).  Lloyd Unsell, the pulpit preacher, left about 2 months later to return to Oklahoma, and I received very quick and unwelcome promotion. (My Dad was one of the elders at the time, and some expressed concern that this was a conflict of interest; we decided that nepotism was OK… as long as you kept it in the family.) Technically, I served for several years as the "Interim Evangelist" while the elders looked for a new pulpit guy. But they hated going through a selection process and kept putting off actually looking for a new guy. After several years, they decided I was doing an OK job… and no one else was willing to work for $200 a week. After 31 years, Lynn and I are still here.

Denbigh is an area dominated by military and government service workers, so while we’ve been here 31 years, almost no one else at church has been. We did a survey several years ago and found that almost half of our people had been at Denbigh less than two years! That is one of the secrets of our longevity… the church keeps changing. Another secret may be wrapped up in an old “preacher story.”

There was once a church which had a reputation of firing their preacher every year. But then they hired a new guy and after his year was up, they extended his contract. They extended it again after his second year. And after the third year, they offered the guy a lifetime contract. Well, he was flattered and asked them why they once changed preachers every year and now had offered him a lifetime contract. One of the elders said, “Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t like preachers and we don’t really want a preacher; you are about as close to no preacher as we have been able to find!"  

So there may be several explanations for my ministerial longevity. Whatever the reasons, Lynn and I feel so blessed that we have been able to work with the Denbigh Church of Christ for all these years. From the very beginning, Denbigh has given me the greatest blessing a preacher can every hope to receive from a church—an openness to preach messages from scripture even when those messages don’t necessarily fit within our comfortable church tradition. The church has not always agreed with what I have preached, but they have always been willing to listen and to love me anyway. Sermons that at some places would have been “moving sermons” (sermons where the preacher has had to move afterwards) has been met at Denbigh with “you make me think today and I’ll have to do some more study on that.” There is no greater blessing a church can give a preacher than the willingness to listen and be driven back to the Book. Many preachers have to move all over the country in order to grow in their understandings and change their basic stances on basic issues; I have been blessed to stay at one place and grow and change and watch the church grow along with me.

Jesus said that “a prophet has no honor in his own country” (John 4:44). But then sometimes a preacher can be honored in his own country... much more than he deserves to be. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14).

A Pinch and a Sip

OK, so maybe I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. The clock ran out on my class Sunday before I got to this controversial point, so instead of being thankful that I was this “providentially hindered” and dropping it, I'm going to bring it up on my blog.  As they say, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

First, some background. We practice baptism by full immersion in water, not sprinkling or pouring water. Paul in Romans 6 speaks of baptism as a burial, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Baptism is a recreation of the Christ-event in our lives as we die to sin, are buried in water and then rise out of the water to a new life. The Greek word “baptizo” from which we get the transliteration “baptism” originally meant “to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge.” Sprinkling or pouring a little dirt is not a burial; sprinkling or pouring a little water is baptism.

I never know who (if anyone at all) ever reads this blog, and this emphasis on immersion may be news to you. But everyone in my class Sunday would have “amened” this point on baptism. Churches of Christ really stresses baptism; it’s a good thing someone else already had the copyright on “Baptist Church” or else we may have been tempted to call ourselves that! We stress baptism!  I remember listening in on a conversation while some of our folks debated whether or not a baptismal candidate who was standing in the water waiting for his turn to be baptized and then was eaten by a crocodile before his turn came would be saved, (After all, the croc pulled him completely under the water, so…). We do stress baptism, and baptism (baptize) means immersion.

Here’s the question for which I ran out of time and that I now foolishly ask. The word “Supper” as in “the Lord’s Supper” is the Greek word “deipnon” which (using the same lexicon I used above) means “supper, especially a formal meal usually held at the evening.” In other words, the word “supper” means “a full meal” just like “baptism” denoted a full immersion. So (do you see what's coming?) why is it NOT OK to use a little water sprinkled or poured on someone as a symbol of a burial but it is PERFECTLY OK to use a little pinch of cracker and sip of grape juice as a symbol in the Lord's Supper? Do we lose something of theological significance when we replace a meal eaten communally around a table (the model Jesus used) with a symbolic “pinch-and-sip” which we eat in private meditation with no real sharing or communion going on around a table?

For further study, let me recommend a book by my friend John Mark Hicks (most of my friends don’t even read books let along write them) entitled Come to the Table. His take is that we have, to our detriment, turned the Lord’s Supper from a table into an altar.

If you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for the new class I'm teaching Sunday based on Rob Bell's book Sex God.  His first chapter is entitled "God Wears Lipstick."  What on earth was I thinking?

Looking Back

I recently had reason to dig out the original contract that I signed with the Denbigh church in 1980 when I first started my work here. I was shocked that I could find it; I was also a little surprised by what was in it. My starting salary in 1980 was $200 a week and the contract stipulated that it was to be given to me "on each Lord’s Day." What was not stipulated in the contract was how often Jack Dulaney, our treasurer, would give me the check on Sunday and then ask me not to cash it for 2-3 days until he made sure that there was any money in the account! Additionally, they gave me $350 a month housing allowance (which was enough to pay rent and utilities for our apartment… our Section 8 government housing apartment!). They also kicked in $140 a month for insurance, but for some reason the $5 a week book allowance that was typed in the original contract was struck through (in pencil) as if disallowed at the time the contract was signed. (Boy, if I had that $5 a week now, I could buy a new book every other month or so!).

The contract gave me one day a week off, two weeks of vacation per year (not to include more than two Sundays), and one week per year to work at Idlewild Christian Camp (not sure whether that was a benefit or a hazardous duty assignment). With those exceptions, the contract stipulated that “the preacher shall be available in his work with this congregation twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.” The only other contract I remember signing with the church was when Roger was hired (he had one, so I had one). The new one gave me all national holidays off, which I had never had before. (Lynn and I couldn’t decide whether to go to Colonial Williamsburg or to the pool yesterday for Memorial Day, so we stayed home and rearranged furniture). Our elders at that time of this second contract (which I can’t find) worked for the government, so it made sense that they would give me national holidays. (Of course, they frowned on me taking the whole long weekend off like everybody else!)

Section 5 of my contract stipulates my work responsibilities—all pulpit duties, teaching two classes, conducting Ladies Bible class (which was every awkward back when I was 23 and the class was made up of mostly older church ladies), edit the bulletin (which meant type it on a stencil and run it off on a mimeograph machine). Curiously, no mention was made of PowerPoint slides, maintaining the church website, or writing a blog… but then again, they are now paying more than $200 a week!

What is the point of all this? I’m not sure there is one. Well, except maybe this—I have no clue how I got from May 1980 to May of 2011.  How can 31 years seem to be such a short period of time? What a blessing these years have been for Lynn and me. I hope there are a few people who have been blessed in return.

What Your Car Might Tell Others About Jesus

We’re just finishing up a Wednesday night study of Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love. I’ve done several past posts (here and here) on Chan’s book, so I won’t spend time here giving background on the book. If you haven’t read Crazy Love, it would be worth your time to do so. Chan has also posted several videos that go along with chapters in the book on YouTube. Here is the short clip I showed last night--



Chan’s take here really stands out in contrast to what some of the popular TV preachers say and do about concerning money. Can you imagine Creflo Dollar driving a 15 year old Subaru clunker (he drives a Rolls Royce) and sending the excess to support an African orphanage? Joel Osteen owns a 17,000 square foot, $10.5 million dollar estate. Kenneth Copeland flies his own $20 million Cessna Citation jet, the fastest private jet that money can buy. There was a Senate investigation launched into these excesses, but the millions of people who routinely donate to these ministries have not been discouraged. Contrast the video above with this one from Inside Edition--



The contrast between these two different views of money raises two questions, one of them easy and one of them much harder. First, which of these two videos looks more like Jesus? Or maybe even more to the point, which of these two projections of the use of money by Christians looks more like Jesus to our non-Christian world. To tell you the truth, the church looks pretty much like a joke to many non-Christians precisely because of those television preachers and their lifestyles.  If we are going to get the world to take a serious look at Jesus, then we'd better take a serious look at ourselves.

Second, and this is a much tougher question, what does the way that you and I spend our money say to the non-Christian world about Jesus? OK, so I don’t drive a Rolls Royce, but I do drive a five year old Honda CR-V which I do like quite a bit and still owe some money on,  And that means that I DO NOT  drive a 15 year old Subaru and send the difference to support African orphans. Does my CR-V say anything to others about Jesus?  I wonder.  Is it possible that our lifestyle says more than we realize about how seriously we take Christ… and how seriously we can expect the world to take our message? We suggested last night that the reason that many Christians can’t even consider supporting one orphan (let alone an entire orphanage) is because we are so heavily in debt paying for things we really done need that we don’t have the money to give away for more important… and eternal… things. Paul told Timothy to teach the rich folks in Ephesus (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

How are we to not be arrogant or put our trust in wealth (v. 17) and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven (v. 19)? By doing good, being generous and sharing with others in need (v. 18). If we aren't doing that, then maybe were looking more like those rich televangelists than we'd ever like to think!

The Great Disapointment

In the same year that Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone merged their restoration movements, another preacher was making a name for himself on the American religious scene. His name was William Miller, and his followers were called (oddly enough) “Millerites.” Miller came to believe that Bible prophecy held the key to understanding God’s timetable for the end of the world (sound familiar at all?). Based upon the so-called “day-year principle” (“with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” see 2 Peter 3:8), Miller set the date for doomsday as October 22, 1844. He attracted quite a following—somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 (you know how those preacher counts go). There are reports of Millerites

As you may have noticed, the world did not end, and to his credit, Miller responded publically, saying, "I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door."  The time following October 22, 1844 was known among Millerites as “The Great Disappointment.” Most of them simply disappeared, and Miller himself faded from the scene and died a few years later. Some of his followers, however, were a bit too invested in Miller’s doomsday scenario, and they modified his predictions came to form two different groups, the Seventh Day Adventists (who believe Jesus began an “investigative judgment” on October 22, 1844 when he entered the heavenly Temple to open the books) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (who kept right on predicting the end of the world every four or so years or so right up through the 1970’s).

This week, the followers of Harold Camping are experiencing their own “Great Disappointment.” Camping first tried the “investigative judgment” route and said the date was right, but the judgment was spiritual and “invisible” and that the actual end of the world is now October 21. Later he admitted that maybe he just figured it up wrong. What he should have said was what one journalist said for him, “Ok, so I got the Apocalypse date wrong; it's not the end of the world.”

There is a lesson in here somewhere. To humbly seek the mind of God with a determination to follow what you believe to be His will is called "faith." To proclaim that you have the fully understood the mind of God and that you can speak authoritatively for Him is called "arrogance."  There really is a huge difference the two, but it is amazing how often we get faith and arrogance mixed up. We must seek the mind of God (faith) but we cannot calim limit Him or obligate Him by our understandings (arrogance).  Paul ends a pretty difficult section of Romans (which commentataries either see as a parenthetical interruption of Paul’s main point or the actual main point of the book, take your pick) with a with a doxology we really need to keep in mind—

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Anytime we think we have the mind of God figured out (as to the end of the world, how God works in baptism, what kind of church music He prefers or any other topic), we are setting ourselves up for a Great Disappointment. In the words of the great theologian "Dirty" Harry Callahan, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

What If Rover Is Left Behind?

This post will make better sense of you've read the one from Monday. What if Saturday, May 21 really is Judgment Day? After all, it could be, right? What if LaHaye and Jenkins are right and the church gets raptured and all the non-believers get “Left Behind?” Some prophetic (or maybe profit-ic?) genius has come up with the perfect solution to those who worry about their left-behind friends and family. For the bargain price of $14.95, you can pay a website to send emails to your non-believing loved ones after you have been raptured. According to some prophecy experts (see the definition of expert in the earlier post), the post-rapture world will be a time of both great evangelism and great tribulation. So if you are gone and you want your friends and family clued-in to what is going on, then what better way than to send them a post-apocalypric post? How does it work? According to the website

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the "Rapture" of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.

Clever, huh?  Set up your account (250 MB of documents and 62 different email addresses) and you can evangelize after you've vaporized.  (OK, I'm being a wee-bit sarcastic, but I'm having trouble believing this is for real.)

But what about your pets? If you are suddenly raptured, who is going to be there to take care of your pet?  Well, you can contact a company called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets which was founded several years ago to care for pets left behind by the Rapture. For $135, this company promises to come and pick up your pets and take them to their 20-acre compound in New Hampshire and care for them. How are they going to do that for $135? The trip from New Hampshire to Virgina get our little Maltese Bella (Maggie is too old; and Marley, well buddy, you’re on your own) and transport her back to New Hampshire would cost more than $135. So why are these people willing to be left behind and care for pets so cheaply? Because owner and operator Bart Centre (why didn't he call his business “The Centre Center”) doesn’t believe in the rapture. But he is willing to honor his contracts for the 10-year period that they are valid. And he is also willing to take free money from the over-gullible.

Hey, the world could end Saturday. The world will end Saturday for about 153,000 people (that’s how many people in the world die each day according to the Population Reference Bureau's "2010 World Population Data Sheet"). After Jesus assures us that even he doesn’t know when the end will come (Matt 24:26), He tells us, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”(Matt 24:42). The point for Christians is that we are supposed to live each day ready for Jesus to come. Each day we pray, “Maranatha,” “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20). Yes, one day Jesus is going to come, blow His whistle and say, “Everybody out of the pool.” But people have been predicting when that day would be from earliest of Christian times. And the one thing that these end-time dates have in common is that they always had a tomorrow… and they always gave unbelievers one more reason not to take Christians seriously. If we really want to be ready for Jesus when he comes, setting up emails and taking care of pets isn’t the way to do it. Jesus says this is the way—

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:34-40)

Suing the Devil

Last year at Pepperdine, we had pie and coffee one evening with a Hollywood producer and movie actor.  Really.  We were in the cafeteria when two guys asked if they could join us, and they introduced themselves and said. "We just made a movie."  I thought they were kidding, and no one at the table said anything.  So one of the guys said, "No really, we just finished making a movie and we are looking for about $7 million for distribution and advertising.  We heard about this place and thought we'd come."  The movie they had just made was "Suing the Devil" staring veteran actors Malcom McDowell, Corbin Bernsen and Tom Seizemore. The actor we met (sorry, I have forgotten his name) is the last in a series of lawyers who represent the devil (played by McDowell) that are introduced in a segment of the trailer below.



The producers evidently had a little trouble finding the money for distribution and advertising. Many of the people who come to the lectures are either preachers or retirees, so they weren't going to get $7 million in the cafeteria that night! The film has missed several release dates earlier this year and it is currently set for release on August 26. I'm planning on going to see it... IF it ever comes out.

On Mowing the Lawn and the End of the Word

I’m thinking about waiting until next week to mow my lawn. After all, according to some pretty widely reported predictions, the end of the world is coming on May 21, 2011. And who wants to waste time mowing the lawn when the end of the world is right around the corner? So why is the world going to end on May 21? Well, it’s right there in the Bible, plain as the nose on my face (which is pretty plain).

Genesis 7:4 says, "Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." When God says 7 days, he obviously meant both 7 days and 7000 years. I mean EVERYBODY knows that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."  The flood occurred in 4990 B.C. (go with me here).  So 7000 thousand years since God God destroyed the world the first time is 2011. So that’s gotta be the year. Also, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, which shows that they were in the right ball park, but that is another conspiracy theory altogether.

So if the year is plainly 2011, then why do we know its going to be May 21? Well, there are 722,500 days between the date of the crucifixion and May 21, 2011. 722,500 is a highly significant number because it is composed of the significant numbers 5x10x17x5x10x17. Five signifies redemption; ten signifies completion; and 17 signifies heaven. The numbers represent the day of redemption (5) and the end of the Christian era (10) and the ascent to heaven (17) -- and these factors are doubled for added significance. So that proves that the world is going to end on May 21.

Well… of course, unless it doesn't. I have my own theory about the exact date for the end of the world.  I predict that Jesus will come on any day EXCEPT one that has been predicted as the end-time date by self-appointed end-time sooth-sayers who torture the text to come up with a date even though Jesus Himself warned us not to listen to people making such claims (Matt 24:23) and no one knows when the date will be (Matt 24:36). There have always been “experts” (my Dad says that the definition of “expert” is that an “ex” is a has-been and a “spurt” is a “small stream under pressure”) who knew when Jesus was coming and the only thing they have in common is that they were wrong. (See a previous blog for some examples).

Here are some more of my predictions.  I predict that I WILL cut my grass today (unless it rains or the Lord comes TODAY). I’ll predict that I will run this blog in our bulletin Sunday, the day AFTER kingdom-come (because I’m a bit of a smart aleck). And I also predict that the young lady in the picture above WILL be getting her car painted very soon.

More Mixing Ice Cream and Manure

I read an interview with Donald Trump and concerning his political aspirations… and how he combs his hair. I would like to say that this article showed great insight into the mind of a great political thinker… but I can’t. The fact that a reality-TV star can be taken seriously as a candidate for the highest office of the world’s last remaining super-power is a sad commentary on what our political process has become. In order to be elected president, one must court the cult of celebrity, so if one begins the process as celebrity (especially as the boss on Celebrity Apprentice), then so much the better. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to wonder if the quote attributed Eisenhower might be right on target, “Any man [or woman] who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”

Eugene Peterson suggests that the world “politics” has come to mean “what politicians do” and thus the word “often carries with it undertones of displeasure and disapproval because the field offers wide scope for the use of power over others, which power is often abused.” This past week, Lynn and I were talking about one of her co-workers who goes to a church where the “pastor” is paid an insane amount of money and can do whatever he wants and never has to answer to anyone. Lynn said, “Power does often corrupt people… it’s just a good thing you don’t have any.” (I just haven’t let her in on my plan for world domination!) The word “politics” actually comes from the Greek word “polis” or “city” and represents what people do as they live together in community and work together for some common purpose. And that, Peterson suggests, is a very Biblical concept. God is working in “politics” to accomplish His will in ways that we don’t and can’t understand. We join with God in His work in the “political” process in prayer. Peterson writes,

For Christians, "political" acquires extensive biblical associations and dimensions. So rather than look for another word untainted by corruption and evil, it is important to use it just as it is so that by it we are trained to see God in the places that seem intransigent to grace. The people who warn that "religion and politics don't mix" certainly know what they are talking about. The mix has resulted in no end of ills— crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, exploitation. All the same, God says, "Mix them." But be very careful how you mix them. The only safe way is in prayer. It is both unbiblical and unreal to divide life into the activities of religion and politics, or into the realms of sacred and profane. But how do we get them together without putting one into the unscrupulous hands of the other, politics using religion or religion using politics, when what we want is a true mixture, politics becoming religious and religion becoming political? Prayer is the only means that is adequate for the great end of getting these polarities in dynamic relation. (Where Your Treasure Is, p. 9)

We need to lose the hand-wringing and worry over what is going to become of our country and our world. If God really is God, we need to know that he has our back. God is God if President Obama is re-elected and if he is not, God is God even if the Donald becomes president. God is in control, and He listens to our prayers. It's good to remind ourselves of that occasionally. Psalm 2 begins--

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”
The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

If we believe that God is on his throne, that God CAN change things and that prayer CAN change God, then the most political thing we can do is pray. (See Ezra 6:10, Jer 29:17, 1 Tim 2:2). I am reminded of the Tony Campolo quote, “Mixing politics and religion is like mixing ice cream and manure; it really doesn't affect the manure much, but it really messes up the ice cream." One great way to mix the two and improve both is through prayer!

Back From the Left Coast

Well, it is back to the old grind after our trip to the left coast.  Our  sojourn to the Pepperdine Lectures has been a highlight for the last 21 years, and we are already looking forward to next year.  But then, we really enjoy our “old grind” as well.  It's a good thing.  This past Sunday marked 31 years at Denbigh!  It was hard getting back in the swing of things, especially since I woke up this morning with a migraine.  The drugs knocked it down enough for me to come into work only 4 hours late, but they also made it a little hard to concentrate.  So if this blog is a little more goofy than usual, it’s the drugs.  I don’t know what it means if the blog is a lot better than usual!

So what happened while I was gone?  Well, Osama bin Laden is no longer on the most wanted list!  Getting bin Laden does not end the war on terror.  In fact, most people seem to think that (in the short term anyway), bin Laden’s death makes another major terrorist act more likely.  But it is hard to imagine any resolution in any form to the war on terror without bin Laden being brought to justice.

So what immediately went through your head when you heard that he had been killed?  To be honest, the first thought that I had was surprise.  I didn’t think he’d ever surface; in fact, I thought it was likely that he was already dead (there had been reports that he had cancer).  So what SHOULD Christians think or feel at the death of an “evil mastermind” like Osama bin Laden?  Well, one indication of what many of us DID think is the Bible verses that were tweeted following the announcement of his death.  According to an article on Christianity Today, the top ten Bible verses tweeted over Twitter were…

• Proverbs 24:17 "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice."
• Psalm 138:8 "The LORD will make PERFECT the things that concern me"(KJV). (NIV: "The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.") 
• Proverbs 21:15 "When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers." (Rick Warren started this one):
• Ezekiel 33:11 "Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?"
• Ezekiel 18:23 "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
• Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
• Proverbs 11:10 "When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy."
• Proverbs 24:18 " … or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them." (The popularity of this verse is due to it finishing the sentence begun by the #1 most popular verse.)
• Proverbs 24:1 "Do not envy the wicked, do not desire their company;" (probably an effort to quote Proverbs 24:17)
• Proverbs 28:5 "Evildoers do not understand what is right, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully."

So should we remind ourselves not to gloat over the death of the wicked or should we rejoice that justice has been served?  The answer is “Yes.”  All those verses are in the Bible, and they all do bear some application here.  God is a God of justice; God calls us to be people of grace.  There should be no joy when hell gains another victim.  But there is joy that “the judge of all the earth does right.”  I don’t do Twitter—too much pressure to have thoughts and remember to tweet them (I’m doing well to update my Facebook status once a week).   But if I tweeted a verse related to bin Laden, it might be Romans 13:4, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he [the king] does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”  We should have faith in God’s justice, but that means that we will “leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. (Rom 12:19).

Justice will be served.  In fact, it is already being served, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom 1:18).  We don’t gloat in it.  For one thing, we never know what it is that God is going nor how he is using the events around us to do His will.  For another thing, do we REALLY want God to bring His full justice to bear in the world… or do we want GRACE as well?  If we want grace for ourselves, then we need to leave God enough space to do His work.

Neither Super Nor Natural?

I’m enjoying teaching a class based on Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love on Wednesday nights. I’m using short clips (many of which I’ve edited to make a little shorter) of him teaching on the material. OK, I didn’t love the fact that I spent $25 buying the teaching DVD only to discover that most of it is available on YouTube for free. And I’m not sure I like how much some of my class rave over how great he is. (Last week there was an audible groan when I announced we’d run out of time and wouldn’t have time for Chan’s video). Chan was pastor of Cornerstone Church, a megachurch in Simi Valley California, until he walked away last year to travel in China working with persecuted Christians and orphans. With life change as background, it is easy to see where this article.  Here's some of the article; you can read the full article here.

Church today has become predictable, says bestselling author and influential preacher Francis Chan. "You go to a building, someone gives you a bulletin, you sit in a chair, you sing a few songs, a guy delivers maybe a polished message, maybe not, someone sings a solo, you go home," Chan says in his latest "BASIC" video.

The Crazy Love author is concerned about the big disconnect between what the church looks like today and what it looked like 2,000 years ago. "When you read the New Testament, you see the Holy Spirit was supposed to change everything so that this gathering of people who call themselves Christians had this supernatural element about them," Chan explains in the video series, produced by Flannel…

Chan observes what church looks like today and what it's supposed to look like, according to the Bible. "I heard one person say the church nowadays is neither super nor natural," he says. "Everything is predictable and everything is expected."

"There's a truth to that," he admits. "I feel bad about it. Being around a church culture, even leading a gathering of believers, I've gotten pretty good at predicting what's going to happen in a church service. Was that the way it was supposed to happen?" 

"When Jesus said this power (of the Holy Spirit) would come upon you, it really did come upon them and they were powerful beings (Jesus' disciples)," Chan points out. "Why is it that in the church so many people are weak or defeated or we get so insecure because we look at ourselves rather than God? It doesn't make sense."

Though Christians believe in an almighty and all powerful God who places His spirit in believers, the response among His people today is: "Hi, welcome to church. Here's your bulletin. We'll get you out in an hour. Come back next week. I mean, really? Is that all God intended for us?"

Neither SUPER nor NATURAL?  I have felt the same frustration he expresses here. I grew up in a church that said it was serious about restoring the New Testament church (and that said it was the only church interesting in restoring the New Testament church). But what we talked about was restoring the forms and formats of “the ancient order." But even as we stressed a cappella church music and the place of baptism in the conversion process (which Chan does a good job in this sermon clip and this clip from his Crazy Love series), I never remember hearing too much about the the radical life of New Testament Christianity.  I mean, I grew up in a church that claimed to restore the church of the book of Acts but NEVER even mentioned the Holy Spirit?  Really?

So I’m looking forward to Chan’s new series “BASIC.” I'm sure that I won’t agree with everything he will say (but then I don’t always agree with everything that I say).  And I'm sure he’ll beat me up even better than he did in Crazy Love. May God help us to be more eloquent at living out His call to be His church in the world today.

Between Doubt and Faith

I think that the apostle Thomas just needed a better publicist. OK, so he struggled a bit with believing that the resurrection of Jesus had really happened. He wasn't there the first time Jesus appeared to the apostles, and  when they told him “We have seen the Lord,” he was a little skeptical.  OK, he was a lot skeptical, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25). So we call him “Doubting Thomas.” We use his name to chide people anytime they are skeptical about anything, “The Redskins are going to be good this year; don’t be such a Doubting Thomas.”

Doubting Thomas? Remember when Jesus decides to return to Bethany after the death of Lazarus? Some of the apostles pointed out to Jesus that this might not be such a good strategic move, “A short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” (John 11:8). When Jesus insists on making the dangerous trip, it was “Doubting Thomas” who speaks up and says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16). That doesn’t sound like doubt, does it?

And really, can we BLAME Thomas for being skeptical about the resurrection? After all, how do we respond to people (usually interviewed in those supermarket tabloids) who claim to have seen Elvis down at the 7-11 buying a Slurpee? Didn’t Jesus himself warn the apostles about false claims about people seeing Him? (See Matt 24:4). And don’t forget-- Peter and ALL the apostles doubted when the women first came to them with the report of the empty tomb, “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11). No one calls Peter “Doubting Peter.” But here Thomas does what all the rest of the apostle did when told about the resurrection, and he is forever known as “Doubting Thomas.”

The story of Thomas in John 20 doesn’t end with his doubt-- it ends with his faith. Jesus appears and offers “Doubting Thomas” exactly what he had said he wanted—“Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27). We don't know if he really put his fingers in the scars, but he did believe.  The last words recorded from Thomas in scripture are these, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The strongest and clearest words of worship and praise given to Jesus from human lips in all of scripture comes from the man we call “Doubting Thomas.” Yep, he needed a better publicist.

The power of the resurrection transformed “Doubting Thomas” in “Worshipping Thomas.” And that power of the resurrection can transform us as well. The resurrection is not just a doctrine to believe, it is the source of power in our spiritual lives. Paul said, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” The same power that raised Jesus from the dead also gives us spiritual life and eternal life forever.

His Love Endures Forever

I recently finished reading Rob Bell’s new (and controversial) book Love Wins. When I say “controversial,” that is really an understatement. Before the release of the book, Twitter and the Blogosphere lit up with condemnations and denunciations because Bell (an influential preacher) seemed to be suggesting that hell would be empty and that everyone would be saved. (The theological term for this view is “Universalism”). For many Christians, the very suggestion of such an idea is heretical, and Bell was written up and written out by many because of the book.

To tell you the truth, I was disappointed, not by Bell's conclusions, but because I was left without a really good grasp of why he held them.  Or maybe, what I really wanted was a couple of chapters showing how texts like 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 fit into his thesis that eventually at the end of the final day, love wins and God has his way so that none shall perish but all come to repentance. I really liked a lot of the book, but as they say—“The devil is in the details.”  I wanted to see how he worked out some of those details.  Roger is reading it now; if you have any questions about it, ask him.

Haven't we have all struggled at times with understanding how a loving and gracious God could condemn people to everlasting torment in an unending hell? We had visitor one Sunday who was returning home after the funeral of a beloved uncle and who had stopped at Denbigh for church. She described how loving and giving her uncle had been and all the good works he had done to care for people and better his community. She then said, “It is such a shame that he had to go to hell because he was a Baptist and was so wrong on baptism.” Yikes! Any deviation from the "gospel" truth is enough to condemn?  And that's good news?  There is a great quote on the back cover of Bell’s book that says this--

“God loves us. God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part. Unless you do not respond in the right way. Then God will torture you forever in hell.” Huh?

OK, maybe I’m the only one (except Rob Bell) who has ever struggled with that question. What about people who never hear the gospel (OUR fault more than theirs)? What about honest and honorable people who love God as they know Him and seek to follow Him as they best understand Him but have just been misinformed about some issues of doctrine? That describes a lot of people, doesn't it? Actually, that describes ALL people to some point! How do we believe in a God of love and mercy who is also a God of vengeance and destruction?

 Well, the historical way to do that is quite simple-- you make sure the God of love and mercy is FOR YOU and the God of vengeance and destruction is AGAINST THEM. That was the technique of the Pharisees and the hard-shell Calvinist. God loves us (holy Jews, the elect) and God created them (Gentiles, non-elect) so he’d have enough fuel to keep hell burning for eternity. You might see how this idea might not play in postmodern Peoria. In fact, this image of the hating God (so graphically advertised by those Westboro idiots  and their signs) is perhaps the single major reason why so many Gen-X and Gen-Y people are rejecting the whole idea of Jesus and His gospel today. Those are the folks to whom Bell is writing. I don’t know that he is right; I do hope he get their attention and focus it on Jesus long enough for them to see Him.

But while I was reading Bell (and many of his critics and apologists), I was also reading the Bible. In fact, nothing gets in the way of theology quite like reading the Bible. The Bible seems to have no problem whatsoever in laying paradoxical images right beside each other without attempting to reconcile them. Our reading for today (readings that go along with our theme for Sunday) is from Psalm 136 that unashamedly gives thanks to God because his love endures forever—

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His love endures forever. (136:1-3)

God is glorified because of his creation (136:4-9) and his protection of Israel (136:10-22). The psalm ends with a doxology that praises God for His care and mercy (136:23-26). After every single point is made about the glory of God, the creation of God, and the protection of God of His people, the refrain is repeated over and over in every verse, “His love endures forever.” I know that “His love endures forever” isn’t exactly “love wins,” but I think the psalmist and Mr. Bell could sit down and have a cup of coffee together. Except that right in the middle of this ballad of God’s love is the proclamation of his judgment on His enemies.

To him who struck down great kings, His love endures forever.and killed mighty kings— His love endures forever.
Sihon king of the Amorites, His love endures forever.
and Og king of Bashan— His love endures forever. (139:17-20)

God has enemies. God’s enemies don’t fare too well in the end (although they may seem to fare well for short amount of time). No one in scripture talks more about the love of God than does this Psalmist, but God’s love is presented with something of an edge. It always is. I am reminded of a quote I ran across years ago from P. T. Forsyth--

“God is love” is not the whole of the gospel. Love is not evangelical till it has dealt with holy law. In the midst of the rainbow is a throne.

I just read a great article in the current issue of Christianity Today by Linda Falter entitled, “A Beautiful Anger.” (sorry, no link; CT wants to be paid before you to read their stuff).  On the other hand, Richard Beck (a professor at ACU) argues quite eloquently for Christian Universalism on his Experimental Theology blog. (You'll have to scroll back through his blog for more in this series).  I thought I had other things to say here, but it is Wednesday and I want to have some things to say in my class tonight. Let me end this already too long blog with a quote from Patrick Mead on Tentpegs

And when I get to heaven … if I happen to look up and see every single person there who ever lived on earth — I will not feel cheated or lied to. I will rejoice and there will be no voice louder in praise and joy in all of heaven than mine. For who could fail to praise a God who loved that much?

When You Are As Mad as... Turn to Heaven

Think about the last time that you got really, really angry. Someone cut you off in traffic or cut in front of you in the checkout line. Maybe someone at work took credit for something that was really your idea. Or maybe you were watching either CNN or FOX News and that blowhard news person that you really can’t stand (take your pick) said something that was really, really dumb. You maybe it was your spouse or parent of child who said or did something that was extremely insensitive or hurtful. I don’t know what it was that real got you torqued, but chances are that you don’t have to look too far back in time to find a time when that happened.

Now, that did you do? How did you handle your anger? Most of us aren’t like Mr. Spock who finds emotions illogical. No, when we get mad, we become illogical. We often say or do things that we normally wouldn't. It is no accident that the term we usually use for being insanely angry is the same term that was meant to just be insane—mad.

So what is the best thing to do when you go insane with anger? Paul tells us as Christians that while we will become angry, we are not to sin in our anger… and we are not to hold onto our anger (see Eph 4:26). OK, that is good (and inspired) advice. So HOW do we do that. Frankly, some of us are wired to explode into anger more readily than are others. I remember the funeral of my Uncle Randolph where his kids, closest friends and co-workers all said, “I never saw him lose his temper or even get particularly angry.” I hope my kids and friends will say some nice things at my funeral, but THAT won’t be one of them. Most of us are going to get angry… so what are we supposed to do?

According to a research team which included Ohio State University communications and psychology professor Brad Bushman, one of the very best things you can do when you are very angry is to pray. The researchers found “that people who pray when they are angry feel less angry, behave less aggressively and are less likely to think that others are out to get them.” The group performed three different series of tests (using college student s as their guinea pigs) and all three studies indicated that prayer “has the power to quell anger.” Of course, the researchers did not attribute the power of prayer to God answering prayers; they found that the process of prayer itself helped people reinterpret what made them angry in the first place. Hey, God works through prayer in many ways; the point it, He works.

Next time someone or something really ticks you off—pray. Pray for God to soften your heart and fill it with the grace He gives. Pray for the person that has made you angry. After all, Jesus said “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44) and “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:28). Pray for those suffering from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and Christians suffering persecution in the Middle East (that may help to put your anger in perspective). We need to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), but maybe especially when we are angry.

Harbingers of the End-Time or Opportunities to Help?

A recent poll (done by Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service) found that nearly six in ten evangelicals (a term always open interpretation) believe that recent natural disasters are signs from God that point to the coming end-time. By comparison, only about one-third of Catholics and mainline Protestants see natural disasters are signs from God. About half believe that natural disasters are the result of God’s judgment and punishment. You may recall that last year, Pat Robertson suggested that the horrific earthquake in Haiti was God’s curse on the country for its history of voodoo. (Robertson made similar remarks about Katrina and God’s punishment for abortion). I haven’t heard of any church leaders baling the Japan disaster as punishment from God.

Can God use natural disasters to punish his people and give them opportunity to repent? The message of the prophet Joes was an impending horde of locusts that would punish Israel for her corporate sons. The plagues on Egypt were a series of natural disasters that were God’s judgment on the various deities of Egypt. The difference in these Biblical examples of natural and the modern disasters in Japan, Haiti and the Gulf Coast is that in the former case, we have the commentary of inspired Bible writers telling us what it is that God is doing. Mr. Robertson, I’ve read Moses and Amos’ I’ve studies Moses and Amos. And Mr. Robertson, you neither Moses nor Amos! To presume to speak for God in what God is doing in the world today is the height of arrogance.

The message for the church in earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan is precisely the message that millions of God’s people are getting. Here is an opportunity for the people for God to heal hurting people , to model the love of Jesus Christ and in the process to share the good news and the world sees that we are Christians through our love for others.

You can be a part of the ongoing relief efforts in Japan being done by our fellowship by giving to Healing Hands International.

Some Heavy Thoughts

And article on CNN Health yesterday entitled Frequent Churchgoers Frequently Fatter reports on  research that suggests that religiously active people (those who attended church once or more each week) are more likely than their non-religious counterparts to be obese. In fact, regular religious involvement almost doubles the risk of obesity compared with those who don’t go to church at all. That linkseems clear; what isn’t so clear is WHY church folks are so much more likely to more hefty than non-church folks.

My response was, “Sure... it’s all those potlucks!” And that really is a big part of the problem— church potlucks, small group dinners, prayer breakfasts, and the variety of setting for table fellowship. An old joke has as its punchline that our best know religious symbol is the casserole dish.  Erik Christensen of St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Chicago is quoted in the article as saying, “There's certainly a church culture around eating. What I see among congregants in their 20s and 30s is they are very fit and what I see among congregants in their 50s and 60s is disproportionate obesity." So the longer you stay in church, the more pounds you pack on. Christensen goes on to say that the virtual disappearance of church sponsored softball, basketball and volleyball leagues adds to the fact that active church members are no longer so physically active.

Another possible explanation is marriage. I gained 15 pounds the first 6 weeks I was married after I moving from Gano Cafeteria at FHC to Lynn's home-cooking (she was already an accomplished cook when we married). Kenneth F. Ferraro of the Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University suggests that “weight gain is common after marriage and that marriage is highly valued in most religious groups. Thus, one wonders if the results could be partially due to religious people being more likely to get married earlier and then gaining weight." I like that explanation better than blaming the whole thing on church potlucks.

It is a bit surprising that the church has not been more active in addressing the issue of obesity. For years we preached against things like cigarette smoking and social drinking from the perspective that these are harmful to the body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is becoming undeniably clear that obesity is one of the major health concerns in our society, the cause of all kinds of deadly things from heart disease to diabetes. And yet not only does the church say nothing about this danger, but we allow church to add to the problem.

An illustration from the article. One church wanted to get involved in helping to deal with the growing problem of childhood obesity. They called a meeting to discuss ways to help with this issue… with a potluck supper to start things off!  Maybe we should have fewer church feasts and more church fasts?

Lame Opinions

I remember Bruce Jackson telling the story of a man who came to be a leader in a church largely because everyone always thought that he agreed with them. He was actually an accomplished politician much like the one my Dad likes to tell about who says, “I have friends on one side of this issue and friends on the other side… and I always stand by my friends!” This guy lived by that credo. But there came an issue that needed resolution, and an emergency meeting convened. After arguments pro and con, a vote was called, “All in favor stand up!” This brother squatted uncomfortably in a half-crouch! He wanted it both ways.

The whole nation of Israel was that guy during “the days of Elijah.” Israel wanted to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Queen Jezebel made the worship of God a little problematic by killing all the prophets of God she could get her hands upon, but Israel still had warm feelings for the God of their ancestors. But then there was this Phoenician fertility god named Baal who promised to make their land, their flocks and herds, and their wives, and they wanted to worship him as well. They were in a half-crouch between God and Baal; if they were uncomfortable in that awkward position, you would never know it by looking.

Well, these were the days of Elijah, and he came along to stir things up in 1 Kings 18 (our Bible reading for today). Elijah confronted Ahab with a little proposition, “Let’s have a little contest to see just who really is the true God.” So they gathered the entire nation together on Mount Carmel for the ultimate game of survivor. Elijah throws down the gauntlet in verse 21--

Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.

The NCV  frames the question as, “How long will you not decide between two choices?” The NRSV puts it “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?” That image is helpful, I think.  Israel had been crippled by their indecision; having two opinions was really lame. Elijah wants to force their hand and demand that they choose which god is truly God.

But no one said anything. No one would commit themselves one way or the other. No loudmouth in the crowd screamed, “Baal, Baal, he’s our god; if he can’t do then put us in the sod!” And no one was willing incur the wrath of Jezebel by saying, “The LORD is God; besides him there is no other” (Dt 4:35). They just stood there in a half-crouch saying nothing! A blurb in Reader’s Digest once said, “Pity the person with no opinion for they will go through life with no bumper sticker.” Well, Israel had no bumper sticker for their chariots. No one had an opinion. Or they shared both opinions. No one was saying anything. It was better to have it both ways that to make a choice either way.

Does that sound familiar at all? We live in a culture with competing and contradictory truth systems, each claiming to be valid. We live in an age when many believe at the same time that nothing is ultimately true and that everything is equally true. For many the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth. Christianity once enjoyed a favored status in our culture. The Bible was seen as “The Good Book” even if everyone didn’t try to live by it. Today, Christianity is seen as just one among many truth systems in a crowded marketplace of ideas. And frankly, it is easier to get along in our world if you just accept that some of your friends believe in God and other friends don’t believe in God… and then always stand by your friends. It is easier to just waver between two opinions.

In 2002, I took a graduate seminar class under John Warwick Montgomery, the noted theologian and apologist. He suggested in that class that liberal and fundamentalist churches have responded to the post-Christian, postmodern world that sees everything as equally true and nothing as objectively true in radically and entirely different ways.

• Liberal churches say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em.” They accept the philosophic presuppositions of the culture and dismiss the contrary parts of the Bible as myth and legend. They dress up social change and politics in religious ritual, and they differ from the secular world only in their religious vocabulary. This version of faith is so very thin that there is little to pass on the next generation.
  
• Fundamentalist churches tended to say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, then withdraw from them.” The secular world is such a threat to their faith that they insulate themselves from that world. Their kids go to Christian schools or are home-schooled in a “safe” environment. They socialize only with members of their church. They listen to Christian music, read Christian books and go to Christian movies. Their points of contact with the world “out there” are as limited as they can make it. They have circled the wagons to protect the faith that they live largely in a vacuum. But, Montgomery suggests, that kind of faith is usually pretty fragile and soon crumbles if it is exposed to the outside world.

Montgomery suggests that the right response (in other words, his response) is not either “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” or “If you can’t beat ‘em, withdraw” but rather to just “Beat ‘em!” We are to live the truth of the gospel without compromise or apology. We are to preach the gospel as true. We are to be ready to give reasons why we believe it to be true (see 1 Peter 3:15). And we are to point to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life… and the only way, truth and life!

We can’t have it both ways. If Jesus is Lord, then he is the only Lord. If He isn’t, then we’re just wasting our time with all this church stuff. To live between these two opinions is just lame.

Live Like You Were Dying

The song running through my head right now is Please Mr. Postman... except in my head, it's "Please Mr. FedEx-Man (or "FedEx-Person"). According to Mr. Jobs and the FedEx tracking site, my new iPad is on the truck out to be delivered. Well, it's not a new iPad-- it's actually a refurbished old iPad that was marked down $150 to get rid of it to make room for the iPad2. I could have gotten one of those, but it would be worldly and ridiculous to spend that much money on a new something I really don't need. It just seems somehow more holy to spend $150 less on an old something that I really don't need. At any rate, here's the song that should be playing in my head--



The song is Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." That is the point of the Bible class I'm teaching tonight (based on chapter 2 of Francis Chan's book Crazy Love). You see, once we understand who God really is (our last lesson), then we need to understand that today may be the day that we meet Him. In other words, we need to live like we were dying. In McGraw's song, he is talking to a man that found out in his forties that he just might be dying. So McGraw asks, "How’s it hit you when you get that kind of news? Man whatcha do?" The chorus is the dying man's answer and the point of the song--

An' he said: "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'."

The man sees it as a blessing to know that he's dying, because that allows him to live more like
he was meant to live. Well, not that he was necessarily meant to go mountain climbing, ride a bull named Fu Man Chu, or jump out of a perfectly good airplane. It changed him in more important ways as well.

He said "I was finally the husband That most the time I wasn’t.
An' I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And all of a sudden goin' fishin’ wasn’t such an imposition,
And I went three times that year I lost my Dad.
Well, I finally read the Good Book and I took a good long hard look,
At what I'd do if I could do it all again."

So the secret to living is really living like we know we are dying. There's something that rings true there. David says this in Psalm 39:4-5

4 “Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,even those who seem secure.

If we really see that we are dying, that should change how we live. If we know that our days are numbered, then maybe we'd use the time we have left doing things more even important than rising bulls or jumping out of airplanes... or sitting around waiting for the FedEx-Person. My Dad used to quote Eccl. 9:10 ("Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might") as if to say "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well." That text has a much finer edge on it if you complete the author's thought, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." In order words, whatever you do, do it now because now may be all the time you have left. Live like you were dying.

To quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that." Excuse me while I go look outside one more time... I think I just heard a truck!"