Just Happened?

I just happened to be serving as a youth intern the summer following my freshman year at college. In the process, I received a couple of college credits as an independent study by writing a few papers, reading a few books and preaching a few sermons… none of which were particularly painful except for the people who had to listen to me preach.  As the summer was winding down, I just happened to get a call from Eddie Hendrix at Colonial Heights inviting me to come and teach the youth group during their VBS. They almost always hired their own summer intern, but that year they just happened not to have one.  As I said, the summer was winding down, I was getting ready to head back to school and I really didn't want to mess with one more project (I had already written the final paper for the independent study). So I almost turned him down, but I just happened to work with Eddie each year at camp, and felt rather obligated to help him out.

A few days later, I just happened to get a call from Alan Smith, my college roommate, who just happened to go to the same church where I was teaching the VBS for that week. He told me that there just happened to be this girl at church that he really wanted me to date, and he offered to “fix-me-up” on my one and only blind date. He just happened to be going out of town that week or else he would have probably taught that VBS class himself, and I would have never gotten the call. And by the way, the girl just happened to be drop dead gorgeous!

OK, to make a long story short, I taught that class and stayed with the family, but I don’t remember anything about that. But I do remember that date… literally. It was August 9, 1975. We had three dates before that VBS week was over. (Maybe that’s why I don’t remember much about the class; my mind was totally on something else!)

I don’t have a theology where God is the great Puppet-master pulling the strings and micro-managing every detail of the universe. For example, I’m not sure God sends His angels to make sure I get a perfect parking place when I am going somewhere and running a bit behind. I do thank Him for things like that even though I’m not sure He caused them directly (kind of like Tim Tebow and touchdowns). But I don’t think all of those random things that just happened to happen to bring Lynn and me together just happened to happen at all. God has blessed my life in many different ways in my life, but so many of those ways just happen to revolve around the outcome of that blind date.

And today just happens to be her birthday. Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Beyond Family

Like most churches, we try very hard to be "family friendly."  After all, the traditional family is under attack in our world today, so the church wants to be a shelter for families in this culture of storm.

• So we have a family minister and often talk about family values.
• We have sponsored family retreats and had marriage seminars.
• We even had plans for awhile to build a family life center.

Some churches have "singles ministers" and "singles retreats," but I have never heard of a "single life center."  Sometimes some people get lost in the shuffle when we focus too much on family values.

You see, the church has not always been quite as "family friendly" as we see it today, and least not in one sense.  Listen to the following letter written by a distraught parent to a government official complaining about a dangerous new cult:

I am writing to you to plead on behalf of my son. All of his life, this boy has had the best education that money could buy, and he was well on his way to a great career as a lawyer. But just when it seemed his future was secure, he was suddenly snatched by some weird religious sect who now controls every move that he makes. It is as if he is no longer part of our family nor the world that he lived in before they took him. Sir, I implore you and the government to investigate this cult and stop the dangerous influence that this sect is having on our young.

What cult is being described? The church!  This is a composite of several letters from parents in the third century complaining to government officials about Christianity.  Christians were on the outs with the culture of Rome for several reasons, one of which is that were were seen as a threat to families!  But didn't Jesus predict that this would be the case? Yes, the Bible stresses family values and family responsibilities. But when people are serious about following God, that commitment can have a negative impact on their families.

51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." (Luke 12: 51-53)

Yes, the church must be all for families, but then we also have a higher calling. Church is to BECOME a family; we are to live as a band of brothers and sisters in a common bond that transcends family and  becomes family to those who have no family. The church does not exist to simply serve our families; the church exists to transform our families and make them a part of the family of God.

The Problem with Thanksgiving

You know the story of that very first Thanksgiving Day in the English colonies, right? You know, the one where Captain John Woodlief and those 38 colonists who had just had arrived in the Virginia colonies from Berkeley, England and set aside a day of giving thanks to God at the Berekley Hundred (later renamed Berkley Plantation) on December 4, 1619 where Woodlief proclaimed--

Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Oh, you haven’t heard that story? That because those Johnny-come-lately Pilgrims from Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth Rock with a publicist, so that now everyone just “knows’ that the first Thanksgiving was in Massachusetts with the Pilgrims after the whole colony almost froze to death following that first bitter winter in 1622. But the very FIRST Thanksgiving Day was in Virginia. OK, so actually the first Thanksgiving in the New World was one led by Spanish explorer Juan de Onate held one near El Paso, Texas in 1598, but that one doesn’t count because it was in Texas! They probably had chili and burritos and guacamole or something (actually, that sounds pretty good).

At any rate, the idea of a Thanksgiving Day was not held as a "perpetual" celebration in either Massachusetts or Virginia.  Thanksgiving Day was never more than a local and sporadic event until until Abraham Lincoln made it an annual national holiday observance in 1863. Which means that “first” thanksgiving in Massachusetts took place after a bitter winter almost destroyed a whole colony and the first national Thanksgiving Day was observed DURING the tragedy of the Civil War that almost destroyed our nation. We still observe Thanksgiving Day, but it has little to do with struggle and more to do with eating ourselves silly and then complaining about how stuffed we feel!

But that’s not the real problem with Thanksgiving. The real problem is that we set aside this one day to reflect on and give thanks for our blessings (in which we overindulge) and then ONE DAY later…  we rush out for  “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day of the year.  We forget all about Thanksgiving Day in our rush to run out and get more stuff. The idea of Thanksgiving was born from struggle and the awareness of God’s goodness despite our difficulty and hardship. Now we seem to believe that we deserve all the good things we have, and we can’t even have of day of reflection on Thanksgiving without turning it into an excuse to shop until we drop getting more, more, more. Will Rogers drew this contrast between Thanksgiving Day then and now:

In the days of our founders, people were willing to give thanks for mighty little, for mighty little was all that they expected. But now neither government nor nature can give enough but what we think is too little. In the fall of the year, if the founders could gather in a few pumpkins, some potatoes, and some corn for the winter, they were in a thanking mood. But if we can’t gather in a new car, a new radio...and some government relief, why we feel that the world is against us.

It’s ironic that the more and more we have for which to be thankful, the harder and harder it is seems to get to be truly thankful. As the late Andy Rooney would say, “Why is that?”

The Ultimate Undelete

I was in Memphis in August of 1985 desperately trying to finish my master’s degree. Why? Well, I had been told that I had until the end of the year to finish my research project, but then I got a call (while at camp at the end of July) telling me that I had until the end of August before the statute of limitations kicked in. Of course, I left grad school in 1980 with only that silly project to complete, so I guess it really wasn't the schools fault that I had put it off so long. Actually it the real reason was eschatological; Jesus could return at any moment, so why waste all that effort on a thesis?

As I worked late one night typing away on my paper, I somehow hit the wrong button and deleted the whole thing. Gone. I loaded up my backup diskette (remember 5 1/4 inch floppies?), it was unreadable. So there I was a week away from my deadline, and all I had was a blinking cursor and a cryptic error code. What saved the day and my degree was some computer nerd named Peter Norton and his “Norton Utilities Undelete 1.0.” My thesis and degree were saved. Thanks Peter.

Wouldn’t it be great if life came with an undelete program? How many times have you said something or done something and wished you could just take back?  What if you could hit a key and life would be restored to its pre-crash status?

• Make the wrong choice after agonizing over a tough decision? No problem. Click undelete and make the right choice this time.
  
• Say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time in the heat of the moment? Just use your undelete key, and this time you get to say just the right thing.
  
• Disappoint someone you love? Disappoint God? Well, just boot up your Spiritual Undelete disk, and everything is restored to its original pre-crash state.

Well, there is no such button. You can’t un-ring a bell. You can't un-send an email (OK, Gmail does have an "unsend" button, but you only get a few seconds to use it). You can’t take back words already spoken. You can’t undo bad things, no matter how many good things you try to put in their place. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. We've all been there, haven't we?

That reminds me of Peter (Peter the apostle, not Peter Norton). One minute Peter was boldly proclaiming, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you" (Mark 14:31). The next minute he was alone, hearing himself say, "I don’t know this man" (Mark 14:71). Over  and over he heard the rooster crowing in his head. In fact, what Peter probably heard over and over were Jesus' words, "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:33).  And Peter had just disowned Jesus in the most dramatic way possible. Three times. He would have given anything for an undelete key!

While Peter struggled with his failure, something was happening in another part of Jerusalem that would change everything forever. Some of the women went to Jesus’ tomb to finish the process of His burial, and what they found was the ultimate undelete key. An angel appeared, telling them that Jesus was alive! And the angel had a special message for Peter, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:7).

So why did the angel specifically mention Peter? Why not stop with just “Tell his disciples?” Was Peter mentioned by name because of all the disciples, Peter most needed to see the full implication of the resurrection? Peter was a failure. He denied Jesus and so Jesus would deny Him. It was as simple as that, right? Wrong. The empty tomb changed everything. Peter was about to come face to face with God’s undelete key. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, Peter had another chance.  And we call that second change "the gospel."

At some point, we all fail miserably. We deny in word or in deed that we know Jesus. Maybe our denial isn't quite as dramatic as was that of Peter.  Or maybe it is every bit as dramatic.  Maybe our crash and burn was just as public and final as was Peter's.  The question is will we, like Peter, accept His forgiveness and move on to greater service and discipleship? Will we live like we believe that the gospel brings broken lives back from the dead?  The gospel is the ultimate undelete.

Just Business

In a scene from the movie, The Godfather, one of the Corleone henchman is discovered to be involved in a plot to betray Michael Corleone, the new Godfather. The plot is discovered, and the henchman is led away to go "sleep with the fishes" or whatever. He says to one of the other henchman, "Tell Michael it was just business; it was nothing personal."

While most Christians (I would assume) aren't involved in organized crime, it is surprising how many do seem to subscribe to this "it's just business" philosophy. The business and financial and career world is a dog-eat-dog rat-race. And to survive, let alone thrive, one must race the rats and eat the dogs right along with everyone else. And so it is all too easy to adopt one set of ethics for business and career purposes and quite another when dealing with family and friends... and church.

In Deuteronomy 24, God through Moses gives Israel a series of laws that pertain to business and financial concerns. Now God understands that we must all make a living-- He came up with that idea! But all of these laws assume that there is a bond of humanity and brotherhood that is more important than getting ahead in business. Notice for example--

• In verse 6, the Jews are forbidden to take a millstone as collateral for a loan; that would take away a man's livelihood and thus his ability to repay the debt.
  
  
• In verses 12-13, when they made a loan was made, particularly to someone poor, the Jews were not keep the collateral overnight. Returning at night a man's coat given as collateral was seen as an act of righteousness in the sight of God.
  
  
• In verses 14-15, wages were to be paid at the end of each day. The poor lived day to day, and they might not make it to a payday at the end of the week. So the payment of wages was done based on the needs of the worker, not the convenience of the owner!
  
  
• In verses 17-18, special consideration was to be given to those who were at a particular disadvantage in financial matters-- widows and foreigners. (I wonder if running sweatshops in foreign countries that pay little and pressure workers to the point where some commit suicide applies here at all?)
  
  
• In verses 19-20, the harvest was to be done in such a away that produce was left in the fields to be gathered by the poor.

The point here is not that we should expect Wal-Mart or Microsoft to do business like this. The point is that Christians should be governed by an unselfishness and heart for people that guides them in their business dealings. It is never the case that any part of our lives is "just business." Indeed, God is our business, and we are glorify Him in our business dealings.

Saints Who Have Never Been Caught

Christians are called to be holy, and we have no choice than to be 100% against sin. The greatest task of the disciple is to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature (Col 3:5) and to live lives that are worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1). Our problem is that we see the sin in other people's lives more easily than we see it in ourselves. Why is it there are so many Christian activists seeking legislation to ban homosexual marriage (because of its attack on traditional family) that never campaign for laws banning heterosexual divorce (the single biggest attack on the traditional family). Why? Because it is so much easier (and much more fun) to focus on the sins of others than on your own sins

Christians have always had a hard time separating the sin from the sinner, and so we often come across as being against sinners. We also seem to insist upon separating the MINOR sins (ones of which we're guilty) from the MAJOR sins (the ones others commit). The most characteristic way that believers from the Pharisees to the present day church have used to show that they are against sin is to be harsh and condemning in their judgment of "the sinners." You don't have to be one of Fred Phelps wackos holding signs and shouting slogans to be guilty of this kind of harsh judgement. So Jesus is speaking to us and not just to long ago Pharisees in Luke 6:37-42.

37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
39 He also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.
41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We are not to judge other people because we are not God-- it's really that simple. God is morally perfect, and it is that perfection that allows Him to be the judge the world. God is neither above His moral law nor subject to it. He IS moral law; right and wrong flow from God's own divine and perfect nature. We can’t judge others because we don’t have that perfect nature. When we point to the sin of others in judgment and condemnation, we always do so with the beam of our own sin in our own eye. In fact, when I spend my time pointing out the sins of others, my attention is distracted from my own sin and what I need to be doing to overcome it.

We are all sinners; we all struggle with our imperfections. We are called as disciples to struggle together to overcome sin and encourage one another in our Christian walk. What we are never called to do is judge one another. In reality, few things are more discouraging and debilitating in our struggle with sin than the censorious, judgmental spirit of other believers who act as if they have no sin. A.T. Lanta's refers to these as the "Saints Who Have Never Been Caught." His poem contains the following stanza:

I'm a sinner, O Lord, and I know it; I'm weak, I blunder, I fail;
I'm tossed on life's stormy ocean; like ships embroiled in a gale.
I'm willing to trust in Thy mercy, to keep the commandments Thou hast taught;
But deliver me, Lord, from the judgment of Saints who have never been caught.

A Personal Relationship with Christ

How many times have you heard someone talk about having a “personal relationship with Jesus” or a “personal relationship with God?” People are told that they need to “accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.” That kind of language is used to stress the need for each person to make his or her own choice to follow Jesus-- as opposed to adopting or inheriting the religious faith of their parents. And that is surely important. Each of us will “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor 5:10).  The only way this is going to be a pleasant experience for us is to know the Judge personally.

It may surprise you to find out that the language “personal relationship with Jesus” does not appear in the New Testament. In fact, as Mark Luepke recently pointed out, the word “personal” doesn't really appear in the News Testament. Yes, my NIV uses the term “a trusted personal servant of the king” to describe a man named Blastus (Acts 12:20) and has Jesus talk about those who “gain personal glory” (John 7:18). Nut more literal translations (NASB, ESV) don’t use the word “personal” at all. It’s a bit surprising that this “personal relationship with Christ” mantra of modern Christianity just isn’t found in the New Testament.

Is that really such a big deal? Well, it might be. When many Christians today use the term “personal relationship with Christ,” what they are really talking about is a “private relationship with Christ.” More and more believers are opting-out of church altogether and are choosing to have a more personal religion. The idea is that my religious faith is between only me and God and doesn’t need to involve anyone else. The bottom line, we are told, is that “It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”



The New Testament never uses the language of “personal relationship with Christ.” And it certainly doesn't envision a religion that is a private matter between me and God and that everyone else can leave us alone.  In the New Testament, faith in Jesus is ALWAYS communal and lived out in relationship with other believers. Over and over again, Christians are encouraged live their lives of faith together in relationship with one another. There is no personal relationship with God without a living relationship within a community of faith. The cross that brings us closer to God also brings us into a "common unity" with other people of faith. So while the language of “personal relationship with Christ” is not used in the Bible, what we do hear over and over is how we are to live with "one another" or "each other."

• Rom 1:12- That you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (1 Thess 4:18)
• Rom 12:10- Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
• Rom 12:16- Live in harmony with one another. (1 Pet 3:8)
• Rom 13:8- Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another (1 Thess 3:12, 1 Thess 4:9, 2 Thess 1:3, Heb 13:1, 1 Pet 1:22, 1 Pet 4:8, 1 Jn 3:11, 1 Jn 3:23, 1 Jn 4:7, 1 Jn 4:11-12, 2 Jn 2:5)
• Rom 14:13- Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another.
• Rom 15:7- Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
• Rom 15:14- You yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
• Rom 16:16- Greet one another with a holy kiss. (1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12, 1 Pet 5:14)
• 1 Cor 1:10- That all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you (Phil 4:2)
• 1 Cor 11:33- So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.
• 1 Cor 12:25- No division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
• Gal 5:13- But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
• Gal 5:15- If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
• Gal 5:26- Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
• Gal 6:2- Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
• Eph 4:2- Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Col 3:13)
• Eph 4:32- Be kind and compassionate to one another (1 Thess 5:15)
• Eph 4:32- Forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Col 3:13)
• Eph 5:19- Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. (Col 3:16)
• Eph 5:21- Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
• Col 3:9- Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
• Col 3:16- Teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
• 1 Thess 5:13- Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
• Heb 10:24- And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
• James 4:11- Brothers, do not slander one another.
• James 5:9- Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged.
• James 5:16- Therefore confess your sins to each other
• James 5:16- and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
• 1 Pet 4:9- Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
• 1 Pet 5:5- Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another
• 1 John 1:7- But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another

Some of these passages tell us what we are TO DO with one another—teach, be humble, encourage, show hospitality, etc. And some of these texts warn us what NOT to do with one another—do not lie, do not bite and devour, stop passing judgment, etc. What these verses should tell us is that there is no way to live the Christian faith PRIVATELY. God made us for community and fellowship. He made us for accountability and worship. He did not make us to stay at home and watch religious TV and think that our personal and private religion” is “Christian” in the Biblical sense of that term

Are You a Pretty Good Person?

Most people probably see themselves as a good person.  Even those people you consider to be pretty petty, mean and selfish, they probably consider themselves to be a pretty good person.  And even those people who do demonstrably evil things tend to excuse themselves by say, "Yes, but basically, I'm a pretty good person."  My point is that we generally set the bar pretty low on what it takes to be a good person.  I remember Bob Clark reviewing of Lewis Smedes' book, A Pretty Good Person.  I seem to remember him saying that it was a pretty good book, but I don't remember anything about it-- I was bummed that the guy reviewing the Max Lucado book didn't show up.

I ran across the following video while looking for something to use with my Middle School students in our small group study on the Ten Commandments.  Warning: There is a commercial at the end; feel free to hit the You Tube stop button when you get there.



This little clip reminds us that maybe we're not really the pretty good person we want to think we are.  We think we're a pretty good person, but that's because we're comparing ourselves with other people.  That won't fly.  Paul reminds us "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Rom 3:10).  That is the first of a series of Old Testament quotations that leads Paul to conclude "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Rom 3:20) and "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). As long as we keep the bar low and compare ourselves with others (and are pretty selective about the others to whom we compare ourselves), we can convince ourselves that we are pretty good people.  But our only real hope at goodness is through an act of God, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." We'll never be good on our own, but in Christ we have a righteousness granted from above.

But that is really not my point.  When a many people "out there" in our increasingly secular world think of "Christians," what comes to their mind is not those who are "a pretty good person." The three words that most come to mind when they hear the word "Christian" are "anti-homosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical." According to David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in UnChristian (Barna, 2007), many (particularly younger) non-Christians view the church through the lens of what we're against. There are six negative themes that sum up the perceptions and attitudes of younger non-Christian people of Christians-- hypocrisy, treatment of outsiders as conversion targets, hatred of homosexuals, seclusion from the real world, over-politicization, and condemnation. Their perception of us is that we don't come across as pretty good people. In fact, sometimes we can come across as pretty mean-spirited, harsh and condemning in the name of Jesus.

 Sure, many of those people have formed opinions based on perceptions gleaned from the media. If by "Christian," they think Pat Robertson or even Fred Phelps, it is no wonder that they have negative views about us. But most of the people surveyed in the Barna study knew Christians personally, and thus some of their opinions were formed by first hand experience.

So here's my point... finally. While it is not enough for us to be "pretty good people," our Christian faith must lead us to live in the world of non-believers in a that "will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life" (Phil 2:15-16). It is not enough for us to be a pretty good person, but if we don't live so that the people around us see us as a pretty good person, then we more or less invalidate our belief that Jesus makes a difference.

Eating Humble Pie at McDonald's

I don’t really follow pro basketball, so the current NBA lock-out doesn't bother me at all. It amazes me-- the minimum wage in the NBA is $473,604 for a rookie and $1,069,509 for a six year vet. I’m sure the NBA owners make a ton of cash, but it is hard to feel too sorry for any of these guys. I did have a little fun at Labron James’ expense yesterday. I was reading an article on the NBA labor dispute where the writer quoted Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” For some reason that made me think of Labron James and his commercial for McDonalds, so I cobbled together pieces of two You Tube videos—



Predicting 7-8 championships is a lot easier that producing championships. Someone suggested that Labron James has a cell phone that only vibrates—no rings! OK, enough poking fun at Mr. James; he may yet win his bunches of championships… if he ever gets to go back to work.

The only reason I can’t make the same point on pride form my life (or yours) is that (thankfully) our bouts with pride and arrogance have not (yet) been posted on You Tube for our viewing pleasure. The verse quoted by the sports writer is just one of many Proverbs than warn of pride--

• Prov 8:13 - “I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech”
• Prov 11:2 - “Pride comes, then comes disgrace, with humility comes wisdom”
• Prov 13:10- “Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice
• Prov 14:13- “A fool’s mouth lashes out with pride, but the lips of the wise protect them.
• Prov 21:4- “Haughty eyes and a proud heart— the unplowed field of the wicked—produce sin. 
• Prov 29:23- “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly spirit gain honor.”

Why all of these warnings? Because you don’t have to be a millionaire athlete to struggle with pride! We all do. And it is dangerous in ALL of us!

On Being a Visionary

I suppose you've heard that Steve Jobs, the founding visionary of Apple Computers, died this past week from  pancreatic cancer. When I heard the news, I couldn't help but think of my friend Joe Vitello. Joe and I carried on a good humored "Mac vs PC" argument for years, long before Apple came out with their commercials. It bugs me that "Mac" is the cool guy in the commercials, but then Joe was much cooler than me-- he once played drums for Carlos Santana; I once owned a Santana cassette. I also thought of Joe a lot because, like Steve Jobs, Joe died of pancreatic cancer eleven years ago.

I start most mornings skimming through the headlines on Google News and CNN. Both of these have been dominated recently by articles on the life, accomplishments and death of Mr. Jobs. In fact, Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens football player featured in “The Blindside” made the news because he had the audacity to admit that he had no idea who Steve Jobs was! For a time the media was all Steve Jobs all the time. Now, I love my iPad and iPod, and I will get an iPhone just as soon as one's available for the $35 a month I’m paying now. But even as an Apple admirer, I was amazed at all the press his passing generated. Some of it was likely due to the fact that no one really realized how really sick he was (some thought he'd make a "one more thing" appearance at the iPhone media event the day before he died).

In the midst of all the Steve Jobs retrospectives that I skimmed, the following post from Brett Harrison on his “Aliens and Strangers” blog caught my attention. (Thanks to Alan Smith for pointing me to this).

I don’t know much about Steve Jobs. Frankly, neither do you. That’s what seems strange to me about our world’s response to his death. We collectively mourn for a man with whom we never shared a meal, a man with whom we never had a conversation.

I’m not suggesting death shouldn’t sadden us. But we do this every time someone in the public eye passes away. Are we grieving the death of Steve Jobs? Or are we simply celebrating the technological advances he brought us — and calling that celebration sorrow, masking our love for things with tears for a man?

I am full of sorrow, though. I recently read this article, which explains why Jobs, on his death bed, authorized a biography to be written about him. Here are his words: 

“I wanted my kids to know me. I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why…” 

I am sad for Jobs’ children. And I am equally sad for a nation who praises and glorifies a man simply because he achieved much in the world of business and technology. That’s a polite way to say it, I suppose. Maybe it would be more accurate, or at least more pointed, to say it this way: I am saddened that we worship a man simply because he gave us phones with touch screens. (Well, look on the bright side: at least we don’t place undue importance on the athletic achievements of 18 and 19-year olds.) 

How I wish our society honored those men who love their families with a love that is second only to their love for God.

I think he nails this pretty well.  No one is really a "visionary" if he allows his children to grow up needing to read a book in order to know their father.

Don't Go to Church; Be the Church

Two churches made headlines recently when they cancelled their Sunday morning church services. We did that not too long ago and there were no headlines… except for “Hurricane Irene Batters East Coast.” But New Life Church and Lincolnway Christian Church in Illinois didn't cancel their services because of bad weather; they cancelled services to encourage their members to spend their Sunday outside of their “church services” to engage in Christian service to people in their communities. So they served at grade schools (mulching, weeding, picking up garbage, etc.), shopping centers (free car washes), homeless shelters (serving meals) and low income neighborhoods (proving free home maintenance). The slogan on the T-shirt here says it all—“Don’t GO to church. BE the Church.”

One of our former elders liked to talk about people having limited amounts of “disposable time.” Granted, we often dispose of that time in non-productive ways (a euphemism for “watching TV”). But sometimes asking our members to be at “formal” church service 3-4 times a week leaves them with little time (or maybe “little perceived time”) for other Christian activities. This is especially true for people with children involved in sports and band and scouts and a lot of other great things that require large amounts of time acting as boosters and taxi drivers. We discussed at a recent leaders’ meeting the possibility of reallocating some of our meeting times (or parts of them) for more service-oriented activities. I got the general idea that many were both intrigued and disturbed-- what exactly is “forsaking the assembly” anyway?

The church certainly hasn't outgrown the need for “the assembly of the saints.” But maybe we need to mature to the point where we realize the PURPOSE of the “worship service.” We must not be “neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Heb 10:25, ESV). But the end purpose of our meetings is to help us “think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” (Heb 10:24, NLT). For too long, Christians have considered coming to church as their religious duty (see this previous post). In reality, our assembly to worship refocuses attention on the Kingship of God, and this allows us to be motivated to out serve our King. The “worship” part of the “worship service” takes place inside the assembly; the “service” part takes place only after we leave. In fact, the service we give to God outside of church is also our “true and proper worship” (Rom 12:2, NIV) or “spiritual worship” (ESV) or “this is truly the way to worship him” (NLT).

“Don’t GO to church; BE the church?” OK, maybe it should be don’t ONLY go to church; be the church.  But I do like the idea of the church making that point by sometimes intentionally shuttering its building and shooing its members out into the community to serve.

Without Fear of Molestation

"Without fear of molestation from the civil authorities." That's a prayer phrase that I heard growing up in many (if not most) of the prayers prayed in church on Sunday mornings. It was right up there with phrases like "ready recollection" and "guide, guard and direct" (which usually came out as one word "guideguardndirect") and other things that I really didn’t understand but repeated in my own prayers nonetheless. Well, I knew what the words "without feat of molestation" meant, but I didn’t really understand that this was really a big problem for churches this side of the Roman empire. After all, I when started to Deer Park Elementary School back in the early 60’s, we still began each day by reciting the Lord’s prayer and absolutely no school activities were ever scheduled on Wednesday nights because that was church night. We didn’t fear molestation from the civil authorities. Even after Madeline Murray O’Hare’s work to remove prayer from the schools (much of which seems to have taken place after her death, if you believe the bulletin articles and email that still occasionally find distribution). The idea of the civil government actually molesting (OK, I always found that word a bit strange) people because of their faith seemed rather remote. And to a degree, it still does.

But it doesn't to Jamie Murray, the owner-operator of the Salt and Light Café in Layton, England. As you might infer from the name of his establishment (Matt 5:13-16), Murray (no relation I trust to Madeline Murrat O’Hare) is a Christian who operates his business in a way that gives honor to God. Since the café opened eight years ago, Murray has been playing Bible texts over the TV screen that can be seen by patrons. Just Bible verses and Bible messages running innocuously on the wall mounted screen. Well, these messages weren’t innocuous to one patron who was offended by the message, and rather than just going to some other establishment for fish-and-chips, he complained to the police who responded by forcing the TV’s to be turned off as a violation of Section 5 of the Public Order Act. When Mr. Murray prays about "molestation by the civil authorities," it is no stock prayer phrase to him!

Neither is it a stock phrase to Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian minister and leader of a network of Christian house churches in Iran. Bro. Youcef is in prison in Teheran and might possibly be executed by the time you read this for his refusal to recant his faith in Jesus Christ and convert to Islam. In Iran, it is not technically illegal to be a Christian, but it is a hanging offense (literally) to convert from Islam to Christianity.  The Iranian government insists that because Nadarkhani's parents (or perhaps grandparents) had been Muslim, then he was under law Muslim… even though he had not ever practiced that religion. While there are many others in Nadarkhani's position in Iran, none is so prominent in leading Christian churches, and thus the fundamentalist Islamic government is going to make an example of him because of it. Pray for our brother believer in Christ and all our brothers and sisters who live in a situation where "molestation by the civil authorities" because of faith in Jesus is simply a way of life.

We take so much for granted, don’t we?

The Greatest Love of All

Several years ago, Robert Schuller sent me a copy of his book Self-Esteem: The New Reformation. (Actually, he sent it to thousands of preachers, but it made me feel better about myself to think he'd sent it to me personally.) In that book and other writings, Schuller redefined the gospel in terms of self-esteem. Jesus came to give us us back the proper view of ourselves that God intended for us from the beginning. Schuller defined sin as "any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem." He suggested that "a person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem." Thus salvation is being saved from this loss of self-worth, "To be born again means that we must be changed from a negative to a positive self-image--from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust." Well, if that is the gospel, then perhaps we should see Whitney Houston as a new-gospel singer as she croons, "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all."

Not only was Schuller wrong, he could not have been more wrong.  The central act of Christianity is the cross where Christ "made himself nothing" (NIV) or "emptied himself" (NET) as He died on the cross (Phil 2:7). The cross was not about self-esteem; it is about shame (Heb 12:2), a shame that we also bear as we follow Jesus outside the camp (Heb 13:13). We are given a new identity as children of God, and that does indeed recast how we view ourselves (1 John 3:1-3). But God calls us to "share in His holiness" (Heb 12:10), and our self-esteem often takes a beating when we see just how short of that we are able to come. Paul is not pumping us our self-esteem when he says, "What a wretched man I am!" (Rom 7:24). The fact that God loves us and that Jesus died for us and that the Spirit indwells us DESPITE our wretchedness does not change the fact that we are indeed wretched. And the greatest love of all is learning to lay down our lives for others (John 15:13, 1 John 3:16).

I really enjoy reading Experimental Theology, the blog of Dr. Richard Beck, a professor of psychology at ACU.  In his most recent blog, he dealt with the idea of self-esteem and Christianity as it relates to the second great command. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Beck suggests that as it is often taught in churches, Jesus is teaching two things here: (1) we must love ourselves and (2) we must love others as ourselves. Thus as Schuller argues (though not to the same degree), the gospel is concerned about pumping up our self-esteem as a platform for loving other. I liked the way he addressed that idea--

Actually don't think Jesus has this very recent, Western psychotherapeutic situation in mind. I don't Jesus is saying anything at all about self-esteem in the second Greatest Commandment. And it worries me a lot that churches are leading with messages of self-love. I don't think Americans need to hear a message that starts like this: "The first thing you need to do is work on loving yourself. And when you've got that down then you can turn to loving others." Because, as best I can tell, a lot of Christians are spending their whole lives just working away on the first part of that equation. Year after year American Christians are spending all their spiritual formation energy on learning to love themselves. And that seems a bit screwy. 

What I actually think Jesus is trying to say in the second Greatest Commandment is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As I argue in Unclean, Jesus is trying to blur the boundary between Self and Other. Jesus is trying in the second Greatest Commandment to form an identity relationship between Self and Other, to see our lives as intertwined. The hallmark of this fusion is empathy, the ability to stand in another person's shoes and ask a simple question: "If this were me, what would I want?" Basically, "love your neighbor as you love yourself" is just another version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Click over to Experimental Theology and read his entire post; I think it will be informative. Let me sum up with how Beck sums up, "The secret, I think, isn't to try to go from a low self-esteem to a high self-esteem. The secret is to just stop playing the self-esteem game altogether. The key is to get out of your head." I like that... I'm just not very good at it.

The Ten Commandments

Message to My Devoted Fans (both of them):  I have comment moderation on the blog set so that anytime anyone comments, I get an email that allows me to allow or disallow the comment from being posted.  This is not so that I can keep disagreements to a minimum (which I'm not opposed to) but a practical necessity sense 90% of the comments I get are spam (somehow I've picked up quite a following of people selling wedding dresses!).  I noticed last week that it had been awhile since I received any requests, and sure enough GMail (by Google) decided that all notices from Blogger (by Google) is all spam.  Anyway, I'll either change the moderation settings or manually check the Blogger dashboard to approve comments.   Sorry if you thought I was ignoring you.

At present, my Sunday morning adult class is undertaking a study of the Ten Commandments and I'm also leading my Sunday night Middle School small group through the same study.  After an introductory lesson setting up the series, we're taking one of the commandment each week and  trying to unpack it for our world today.  Since Middle School students live in a different world than do their parents, the commandment unpacks a little differently.  And we're having much more fun on Sunday nights.

One of the things the kids seemed to enjoy was this video on how to learn the ten commandments in order by using your fingers.  I gave them a pretest at the beginning, and we couldn't as a group name them all in any order.  After they watched the video once, they had them nailed.  Pretty cool.

On Faith and Being Sensitive

People of faith must often navigate mine fields to live our beliefs in our progressively more and more secular culture. Just ask Dr. Richard Scott, a Cambridge-trained doctor who practices in Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent in England. He was in a consultation with a young man who was suicidal and had several medical and personal issues. At the end of that consultation, Dr. Scott suggested that he might consider faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that meant a lot to the doctor through the years. Several months later, the young man complained (actually, it was his mother who complained) to the medical authorities that his own faith (likely Islam) had been demeaned. Dr. Scott was called before a medical board hearing, and he must now defend his actions or he could lose his medical license. “A line was crossed because Dr. Scott expressed his personal religious belief to a person who he knew was a vulnerable patient in a way that was plainly liable to cause the patient distress.” Dr. Scott responded, “He had an awful lot of problems, and the thing to know, that God loves us and Jesus loves us and you can deal with stuff in the past, in terms of hurt or guilt or fear of failure, stuff you can only really find through Christianity.”

It strikes me as ironic that Dr. Scott works at a hospital named for the place in John 5 where Jesus healed an invalid, and yet just mentioning the name of Jesus in a conversation with a patient in the context of healing got him brought up on charges!  The good doctor asked the patients permission before sharing his message of faith, and he only offered it at the very end of the medical consult. Religious faith can clearly have a positive impact in dealing with medical issues (see 1, 2, 3, 4).  If that is the case, then how is it inappropriate to offer a faith-based message as a possibility to consider.  Of course, I do understand that the patient was particularly "vulnerable" because of his illness, but it was precisely that vulnerability that caused him to need something else in his life; what he had was clearly not working for him.  The problem here was not the the doctor offered some sort of extra-medical advice to this patient; the problem was that this man of science suggested that there may be something of value in the idea of God.  And those other men and women of science who make up the medical board don't want to admit that God... or at least that they aren't God.

Christians must be sensitive in bringing up the topic of faith in a world where we can no longer assume that most people have it.  There have been more than enough uninformed and insensitive proponents of faith who act like they are spoiling for a fight as they run roughshod overs in a rush to win arguments and defend positions.  But the idea that seems to have become the status quo in our multicultural word is, "It's OK to have faith as long as you don't try to share it with others."  That is impossible for Christians to accept, because one of the tenets of out faith is "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."   Sure, we have to find ways to be sensitive as we share our faith, but we MUST still share it.

Pat Robertson and Nicholas Sparks

Pat Robertson recently made headlines by suggesting that it was Biblically acceptable for the spouse of an Alzheimer’s patient to divorce them and then remarry someone else. Robertson said that he wouldn’t "put a guilt trip" on someone for divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's disease, arguing that Alzheimer's is itself "a kind of death." So Robertson told a caller asking about struggling with the disease, “if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but to make sure she has custodial care, somebody looking after her.”

His reasoning seems to be that because the Bible teaches that widows and widowers are allowed to remarry (Rom 7:3). Alzheimer’s “is a kind of death,” so the spouse of one Alzheimer’s should also be allowed to divorce and remarry (as long as arrangements are made for a caregiver). By his reasoning, the “Christian” thing would have been for James Garner to have kicked Gena Rowlands to the curb and started dating other women, turning “The Notebook” into “The Little Black Book.” Am I the only one here who thinks that this makes Nicholas Sparks sound more Christian than Pat Robertson?

I can imagine some exasperated wife (maybe mine?) reasoning, “When my husband flops on the couch all day long on Saturday and Sunday watching college and pro football, it’s like he’s DEAD, so that means…” I do know of a Christian wife who divorced her husband because he had lusted after another woman (not sure how she knew that) and thus he had “already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28). Everyone knows that adultery is grounds for divorce, so she got rid of her husband and felt perfectly sanctified in doing so. Pretty convenient, huh?

Pat, if you want to give people permission to white out the “in sickness and in health” clause in their marriage vows, please don’t blame that on the Bible. Every page of scripture reveals to us the faithfulness of God. The reason that God hates divorce is not simply because God wants to preserve the family as the foundation of society and a safe place in which raise children. No, God hates divorce because God is Himself faithful— His “faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 57:10). Unfaithfulness contradicts the perfect nature of our Almighty God. When we are faithful, we become participants in the divine nature of the God we serve (2 Pet 1:4). Faithfulness isn’t always easy, but it is always divine.

The Gift of Time

Shelli Eldredge was on vacation in Hawaii, touring with her husband and two sons on mopeds when a terrible accident left her in a coma. She had about fifty broken bones, including a shattered pelvis, broken spine and a crushed skull and facial bones. She was not expected to live, and one of the doctors told her husband that he should seriously consider disconnecting her from life support. She remained in a coma for weeks, and Shelli’s husband Stephen, himself a doctor, thought that it was "pretty apparent that she wasn’t going to wake up." He decided that he was not going to give up, and his "gift of time" allowed what can only be called “a miracle” to take place.

After several weeks in a coma, one of Shelli's doctors walked from one side of her bed to the other and noticed that she tracked his movement with her eyes. Later, after her husband joked with one of the doctors, Shelli laughed out loud. They were all stunned, and Stephen asked, “Shelli, did you hear that?’” She responded by raising her eyebrows. That started a process of recovery, and today, three months after the accident, Shelli is walking and talking and determined to come all the way back. Shelli, Stephen and the boys were recently on the today show telling their story to Matt Lauer.

The gift of time.  I wonder how many troubled marriages that seem to be flat-lining or limping along on life support with no hope of reconciliation could be brought back from the brink if only we would give the gift of time so that God could do His work?  How many struggling Christians who give up on their church and maybe even on God would be given new life and vitality if they just gave themselves and others the gift of more time.  Friendships, jobs, family relationships, church ministry-- sometimes what we need is to give ourselves and others the gift of time so that God can heal and restore.

13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:13-14)

Army of the Lord

OK, it HAS been awhile sense I've posted anything here. I'm still mourning the end of a summer that ended abruptly with VBS, vacation and Hurricane Irene. Lynn and the girls are back in school (Angelynn as a brand new teacher at Warwick High). Summer's gone; I have to deal with it. So it's back to the old routine... which I plan on including a blog post or two or three each week.

We just ended a short sermon series on Spiritual Warfare Sunday. When many people hear "Spriitual Warfare," they think of angels, demons and exorcism. So... do demons possess people today like they did in Jesus’ day? I really don’t know. I doubt Satan would want top do that much our modern world where most people don’t believe that Satan even exists; it would be silly for him to disabuse them of that notion. What I do know is that the Bible never commands us to exorcise demons. There is no passage that outlines an exorcism. Jesus told them to go away, and they went away. It didn’t always work that way for the apostles (Matt 17:14), which probably is why they were so hacked off when they came across the unknown exorcist (Mark 9:38). Of course, it really turned out badly for the sons of Sceva when they tried to cast out demons in the name of Jesus (Acts 19:14).

No, we are not told to cast our demons or how to go about casting them out. But we are told some specific things that we are to do concerning spiritual warfare.

• We are told to “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7)
• We are told not to “give the devil a foothold” through our anger (Eph 4:27)
• We are told to “Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Pet 5:9)

The emphasis on our participation in spiritual warfare is not on how to get the devil out of others; it is rather the necessity of resisting the devil’s hold on us.

The problem is that many of us have come to believe that sin really doesn’t matter that much anyway. After all, how many were brought up thinking that a lot of things were sinful (dancing, drinking, going to movies, mixed-swimming, and the beat goes on) that they now believe to be no big deal. In fact, the whole idea of sin is pretty much no big deal any more, which is a bit awkward on Sunday morning when we remember the price Jesus paid for our sin, a price that makes no sense if sin isn’t that big of a deal any more. You really do get the idea that sin isn’t nearly as gnarly as we once thought it was when you consider the following factoids:

• Christians vote against abortion, but we get as many abortions as others
• We say we believe in sanctity of marriage, but divorce at higher than culture
• We can fuss over social drinking, but we  are alcoholics at rate as culture
• Polls say as about 50% of our men and 20% of women use pornography
• Barna suggests as many Christians as non-Christians cheat on marriage
• 51% of Christians admitted on one poll they lie (were they being truthful?)

What’s going on? We can defend the reasonableness of faith with philosophic and scientific evidence, but if make no difference in how we live our lives, then why would anyone want it? When we become just like the world around us in every recognizable way, then why would they want to become like us. In fact, HOW can they become likes us—they already are like us?

The old Acappella song “Army of the Lord” asks the question, “Are we walking into the enemy camp laying our weapons down?” More and more of us don’t even know there’s a way going on!

Bitterness Is... Bad

In Ephesians 4:1, Paul says "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Actually more literally, what he says is “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (ESV). In chapters 1-3, Paul reminds his readers (probably a wider audience than just Ephesus) of their identity in Christ. In the second half of the book, he calls them to live or “walk” in a manner that is worthy of their calling. They were not to “walk” like the pagans (4:17) but to rather “walk” in love (5:2) as children of the light (5:15). This will require making choices between good and evil, so they were to “walk” as wise, not unwise, people. Once we understand our calling by God, then we are to walk in a way that is worthy of our calling.

Paul gets pretty specific in that this walk entails—he talks about things like living in unity, speaking truthfully to each other, stealing from others and dealing constructively with our anger. Living (walking) like the people of God changes the way we respond to those things. And dealing with anger seems to be a particular issue for Paul. He tells not to sin in our anger but to rather process quickly, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry" (v. 26). He then warns that a failure to process our anger will give the devil a "foothold" or "opportunity" (ESV). The word here is literally "place." It’s the same word used for Jesus praying "at a certain place" (Luke 11:1). We give the devil a place in our lives when we allow anger to go unresolved. This must be important for us because Paul returns to anger later in the chapter (Eph 4:31-32)

31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Bitterness, rage, brawling, slander and malice are all just different incarnations of anger. Brawling and rage happen when you act on anger immediately without thinking. Bitterness, slander and malice happen when we hold anger in and let it simmer in our hearts before it bubbles to the surface. We may think that rage is more honest as we blow up and then justify ourselves with, "Hey, I just say what I think."  Paul would respond, "That’s fine, now repent don't do it again." Bitterness is what happens when we fail to work through (and pray through) our anger so that we can release it (even if the other person does not properly repent). Bitterness is a very dangerous thing; it twists us spiritually and emotionally.

And bitterness can also twist us up physically. Researchers from Concordia University in Montreal report that constant bitterness can lead to physical illness, affecting everything from organ function to immune response and vulnerability to disease. In other words, bitterness will make you sick. Researchers Carsten Wrosch and Jesse Renaud have written a book based on their studies entitled Embitterment: Societal, Psychological and Clinical Perspectives. There study suggests that bitterness affects many different systems in the body that prevent them from working as they should. Bitterness causes people to blame others for their problems rather than looking side themselves, and this process over time litter makes them sick.

Paul’s advice may help us physically as well as spiritually, "Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry.” When an offense is serious enough to rise to the level of sin, then Jesus’ process in Matthew 18 ceases to be optional— we must go to the person directly (without talking to others) to resolve the issue in private. If that doesn't solve things, then we go back and take someone with you as a mediator. If that doesn’t work, then involve the church to mediate the issues. What we can’t do is allow things from personals slights to actual sins to fester and grow in our hearts and turn us into bitter people. When that happens, we are crippled spiritually and give the devil a place in our lives

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.