The Moose are in Need of Reproof

I am Gomer. (and so are you!)

2010-10-27T11:55:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I had the privilege of preaching at a friends wedding. It was a destination wedding, and so no one had a home church to go to. So since the wedding was on Sunday afternoon, the bride and groom organized a church service Sunday morning for all the wedding guests, and I was the preacher.

I chose Hosea 2:14 and following as my text, but generally spoke about three whole story of Hosea. It seems like an unlikely choice of text for a wedding weekend, particularly if you know how great the two people getting married are. Why talk about a guy who marries a prostitute? But as I promised them at the beginning, this story has a happy ending.

The little morality play acted out by Hosea, in marrying Gomer, then having kids, then her leaving, and Hosea going out to find her, and buy her back, and bring her home, is, of course, the story of the gospel. We are represented by Gomer. We are sinners, an unfaithful bunch of people, who offend our God, and leave him repeatedly, despite his love for us. We are hopeless. We need a Hosea. And the good news of the gospel is that we have a Hosea, one whose name literally means salvation. God is like the husband who though sinned against in the most grievous way, will still go out and find his lost wife. He hunts us down. He will not allow us to get our own way, when our way means leaving God to pursue lesser pleasures.

The story of Hosea is a representation, in the starkest way possible, of the grace of God in the gospel.

But, being that it was the day of a wedding, I also tried to make some application to our own marriages. Of course, in the story, one member of the marriage represents sinners, and the other represents God. In our own marriages we have a different problem. We are all Gomers. We are all sinners, who sin against the Lord, but also against one another. We are all prone to wander, and we all hurt our spouses, in profound, and personal ways from time to time. What are we to do if we are both Gomers?

First, of course, this means we all need salvation from the ultimate Hosea! But there is also help here for our marriages. If we are all Gomer, then we also all need to play the part of Hosea to one another. Hosea 3:1 records what God commanded Hosea, "Go, again, love your wife, though she is loved by another.... as the Lord loves Israel." Or, as I like to summarize it for our sakes, "Go, again, love your wife, although she is imperfect, does not live up to your expectations.... just like the Lord loves you."

And it doesn't just go one way, wives need to love their husbands in the same way, loving them again, although we are imperfect, just like the Lord loves us. In our marriages we have an opportunity in every day life to demonstrate the grace of God in the gospel to one another. By loving each other purely as an act of grace, even when we deserve something else, and to do so because that is the way that God has loved us.

Marriage is a small scale stage on which we can act out the drama of the gospel. We do this for the sake of the other, and for the sake of the watching world. So that they can see how we love each other. And maybe they will ask why in the world did you not consign him to the doghouse for the evening after what he did to you? And we will tell them that God has never consigned us to the doghouse. He loves us. Again.

Forgiving Love

2010-10-12T06:47:00.000-04:00

“Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy…”

Ran across that quotation by Reinhold Niebuhr in Christianity Today. For someone who reads their Bible it’s not particularly surprising—Jesus said it long ago (Matthew 6:12, Matthew 18:21-35) and Christians ethics is based on the concept.

No, I shouldn’t call it a concept… It’s something more real and more animating than your everyday concept. Those who know the reality of God’s forgiveness know the power of words such as these: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:30). And what a weighty thing it is to have words like these in your mouth when you approach a holy God: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

So even though the quotation isn’t surprising, it is profound. And, if you are having trouble forgiving someone, it is also very practical. People aren’t going to find forgiveness possible if they don’t see their own need for forgiveness.

But don’t stop reading yet. The best part of this short post is this…

What is amazing about the God who saves, the God described in the pages of Scripture, is that He forgives freely.

God made provision for our salvation not because He knew He Himself needed forgiveness but out of a freely given mercy. People who think they are perfect don’t forgive well; but God in His perfection forgave those who hated His perfection. He still does to this day.

And Jesus, God in the flesh, forgave those who hated and abused Him—not because He needed forgiveness, but in order to provide forgiveness.

Wow.

Three More Things Ken Thinks

2010-09-28T06:14:00.004-04:00

1. I think that 1 Peter 2:9-10 summarizes the meaning of life well. It shows us that our job is to glorify God, enjoy Him forever, and share Him with others. Oh, and it goes something like this: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

2. I don't understand why it can be so challenging for a church to grow through new conversions. Aren't the fields white for harvest?

3. I think that this post by Ray Ortlund is a good one. He says that Reformed people should be fun to be around.

Search for Insignificance

2010-09-16T09:37:00.004-04:00

So last weekend, the news channels told me repeatedly, there was this insignificant pastor of an insignificant congregation who wanted to burn a book. And so this insignificant pastor of this insignificant congregation received far more media attention than he deserved, because everyone should have realized that both he and his congregation were utterly insignificant. After all, they only have 30 or 40 people attending the church.

It so happens that I was once an assistant pastor at a small church. That church was so small and, therefore, insignificant, that I will need to pass over those years in silence.

But just two weeks ago, I attended the memorial service of a retired pastor. His congregation had apparently been extremely small. In fact, I had never personally met the pastor (and with a congregation so small, what would have been the point really?) But what was so amazing about that memorial service were the people who travelled far distances to pay their respects, to speak about how this pastor led them to faith in Christ, to express appreciation for the long hours this pastor poured into their lives.

At one point in the evening, as people were joyfully sharing their appreciation, it became evident that many of these people had recently been on missions trips and had shared their own faith in numerous ways. One man, a physician, travels across the globe every year in order to serve a very needy (and no doubt insignificant) population.

This pastor also had children and grandchildren who loved the Lord and served Him, too. In summary, the fruit of this man's life was abundant. His legacy was deep, lasting, and encouraging. I've never been at a memorial service filled with as much joy as I was that evening. It was as if the curtain between earth and heaven was very, very thin.

I am not surprised that TV and radio personalities judge a pastor's significance by the size of his congregation. They no doubt judge their own significance by their audience, come to think of it. But I can't help but think of that day when we stand before our God, and we see so many insignificant people cheered into the presence of God... and we see far too many superstar pastors and megapersonalities ushered to the back row. Or worse, shown the exit door altogether.

What is man's chief purpose? To glorify and enjoy God forever. Let's keep forever in view, or else we may be doomed to insignificance ourselves.

Fellowship and Forgiveness

2010-09-11T17:52:00.008-04:00

At the end of the Lord's Prayer there are a few verses that are pretty difficult to understand. Namely, "but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." -Matt 6:15.

Yikes. Those are difficult words. Why would Jesus say such a thing? Do we loose our salvation if we fail to forgive everybody who wrongs us?

First of all. No. And second of all, the fact that we know we are not saved by our own ability to perfectly forgive everybody else is exactly what makes this a difficult verse to interpret. But if Jesus doesn't mean that we are saved via forgiving others, what does he mean?

Right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer itself, Jesus has taught his disciples to pray asking that God forgive their sins, as in fact, we forgive others. Its important to remember that Jesus is not teaching us "the sinner's prayer." This is not a request for salvation, and so it is not the first time the pray-er of the prayer will have asked for forgiveness.

Part of becoming a Christian is repenting of our sins, asking for forgiveness. And when we do, we have assurance that we are forgiven for ALL of our sins, past, present and future. They will never stand in the way of our relationship with God again. So why then, does Jesus still teach his disciples to regularly pray prayers of repentance, seeking the forgiveness of their sins?

I think it goes back to something I wrote about some months ago. We have two relationships with God. Its true. I have both a legal relationship with God, and a personal relationship. The legal relationship relates to my justification. It means I am saved, adopted, cleansed, accepted in Christ, and nothing can ever change this. It is done. But I also have a personal relationship with God. And like all personal relationships, it needs to be maintained by frequent visits, by communication, by repenting of wrongs. This relationship can be hindered by sin, and so I need to repent regularly.

Its just like my relationship with Aubrey. Legally, we are married. We are man and wife, and nothing can ever change that. There is great peace in knowing this. But we also have a personal relationship. And this relationship requires constant maintenance. It requires that we communicate clearly, and spend time together, build a life together, and most importantly, that we ask each other for forgiveness when we have wronged one another. (and that we forgive when asked!)

1 John 1:6-10 teaches all about how our fellowship with God is maintained by repentance, and forgiveness of sins.

But getting back to the Lord's Prayer. This is a prayer that Jesus teaches to his disciples for their regular use. So when he teaches them to ask for forgiveness on a regular basis, he is not talking about their legal relationship with God. Rather, he is teaching them how to maintain an unobstructed personal relationship. I think the same thing holds true for thinking about these difficult verses, 14-15. He is not teaching that if we do not forgive those who wrong us, that our legal relationship (salvation) is in doubt. Rather, he is saying that if we harbor grudges, by failing to forgive others, that our fellowship (personal relationship) with God will be broken. Sin obstructs fellowship. God will wait to forgive us until we have repented of our grudge and forgiven others. But when we do repent of our unforgiveness, God is faithful and he is quick to forgive us, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and to restore us to the intimacy of fellowship which his children enjoy!

Fun fact: Thesis #1 of Martin Luther's 95: "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ commanded men to repent, he intended that the entire life of believers be characterized by repentance."

Three Things Ken Thinks

2010-09-07T06:32:00.004-04:00

1. The next generation is vitally important. I recently read statistics that by the end of this year, 50% of the world’s population will be under the age of 25. Meanwhile, my sister tells me that her daughter is teaching a kindergarten class in which only 4 out of 25 students are from a two parent home. She is not in the inner city by the way. Ministry to kids is important, strategic… and yet somehow I believe that God’s love toward these children has nothing to do with strategy.

2. I hope you’ll bring your kids to church and send them to Sunday School (or "LiquidFire" or whatever your church offers), yet Proverbs 22:6 - “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”- means so much more than this. Our children need to see that our faith is a very real, and in fact non-negotiable, part of our lives. They need to see that we are willing to sacrifice for what we believe, that we follow Jesus through difficult times and obey Him when it’s painful or risky to do so. Also, Deuteronomy 6 teaches that when we speak about our God to our children, they need to perceive that our life story is inseparably bound to God’s salvation. I pray that I will set this example and for God’s saving grace in my son’s life.

3. The “regulative principle,” the (correct) teaching that we should only worship God as he has commanded in Scripture, sets Protestants apart from Roman Catholicism, theological liberalism, and other false religions. It also helps us to look at our own hearts and see if we are worshiping God really, or if we have made a game out of worship. But I think that the regulative principle has not proven as helpful for comparing worship styles within evangelicalism. Biblical worship is more theocentric and, at times, more ordered (liturgical?) than some would practice; yet more exuberant and spontaneous than others would practice. Unfortunately, the term “regulative principle” gets in the way when it becomes a badge of honor rather than, well, a principle employ with teachable hearts. Under the word of God, we need to learn from one another how to fully enjoy and glorify God. Because He's great, and greatly to be praised.

Greater than the Sabbath

2010-09-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

I wanted to say a few more things about my third thought from the other day. Not just because this has been an enforced topic de jour for me lately, but because it is necessary that we continue the Biblical-Theological conversation on these matters. Theology is done in community, and I write out these thoughts to allow ya'll to contribute to them.

In Hebrews 3:7-4:13 the topic of discussion is "entering God's rest." The main point being made is that the promised land of Canaan is not the "rest" that God provides for his people, a better rest is now available in Christ. The key word in the passage is the word "Today." As in, when do we enter into God's rest? Today! The word comes from the passage from Psalm 95 which is quoted in Hebrews 3. And the word "today" is quoted FIVE times (Heb 3:7, 13, 15, 4:7 2x). The point is, that even though Palestine was occupied by the Romans, and the book of Hebrews might well have been written to believers nowhere near Jerusalem, still they were able to enter into God's rest Today!

How? By faith. Entering God's rest did not mean relocating to God's promised land, it meant trusting in Christ. Heb 4:3 emphasizes that the way of entering God's rest is by faith. The physical promised land was only a sign and a shadow of the reality which was provided by Christ.

When? Today. How? By faith. These are the key ideas.

The way he brings the Sabbath into the discussion is interesting. In 4:1-3 he is arguing that some have failed to enter God's rest because of unbelief, but that we who have believed have entered it. He then cites a verse out of Psalm 95 about God swearing that unbelievers shall not enter his rest. This brief mention of "God's rest" leads to the mention of God resting on the Sabbath day in the creation story. At this point, the sabbath doesn't really play an important part in the argument, it is just a description of the quality of God's own rest. The author goes on establishing his main point the the promised land was not God's ultimate gift of rest to his people, rather God's rest is found in Christ, is entered into by faith, and can be entered "today."

So then. In verses 8 and 9 he's bringing his argument in for a landing. Verse 8 says, "For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on." This just summarizes his argument to this point. And the day God spoke of, is of course, "today!" Then verse 9, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." This is also just summary, he's been making this point for the last 21 verses that there is still rest available for God's people even though the promised land is unavailable. The rest is given in Christ. In this summary he characterizes the rest as "sabbath rest." This makes sense in light of 4:4, where he also characterizes God's rest as 'sabbath rest.' The fact that he calls it "sabbath rest" does not mean that it is available only on the sabbath. It is a sabbath-like rest that is available every day to the one who believes.

The key themes are the same. God has given us rest through Christ. You enter it by faith. And it is available 'today.' And now we also know it is characterized as being God's own sabbath rest.

What this passage most emphatically does not mean, is that the institution of the weekly sabbath is still in force. Do you see how that actually has nothing to do with the topic at hand? The promised land and the OT sabbath (itself a reflection of God's own rest) were both shadows of the ultimate rest that God would provide for his people in Christ. A rest that would never be invaded or taken away. Let us strive to enter this rest.

Three Things Jeff Thinks

2010-09-03T19:13:00.002-04:00

1. I have a slightly new perspective on topical sermons. In the past, I've been somewhat of an exegetical sermon snob, looking down my nose at topical sermons as being less biblical. However, I've been preaching topical sermons lately. I've been doing a series on the Lord's Prayer, and taking it one verse at a time. So the phrase "give us this day our daily bread" led to a sermon on the topic of supplication. And this week, the phrase, "forgive us our debts..." has led to a sermon on praying prayers of confession and repentance.

2. I'm taking a new class at the local seminary this fall on the topic of New Testament Apocalyptic. I'm looking forward to learning more about this perplexing genre.

3. In a discussion recently someone asked me if I believe that the Old Testament teaches the principle that one day in seven is holy to the Lord. I said no. Instead I believe that the OT presents the command that the seventh day is the Sabbath. You'd be pretty hard pressed to find where the OT teaches a "principle" that one seventh of our time is to be holy, as though God were concerned with fractions, and the Israelites would have been at equal liberty to observe their Sabbath every Tuesday. The fourth commandment is a command, and it specifies that the Seventh day is the Sabbath. Its not about the proportion of our time, its about the day the Sabbath is to be observed on. Turning it into a "one-day-in-seven" principle is special pleading indeed. So in the NT when the first believers started worshiping on the first day of the week, they were consciously out of step with one of the ten commandments. What the NT never does, is to teach that the Sabbath has moved, or that Sunday can now be considered the Christians version of the Sabbath. Instead it says that the Sabbath was a shadow which pointed to the reality which is only found in Christ (Col 2). Christians are expected to worship on the Lord's Day (Sunday, the first day of the week) because that is the day Jesus rose from the dead. Christians are free to worship on the Lord's Day because something greater than the Sabbath is here (Heb 3-4).

Not Without My Hiram

2010-09-01T06:35:00.000-04:00

You may have heard something about King Solomon and a temple.

In the Old Testament books of 2 Samuel and 1 Kings, we read that God did not allow David to build a temple but promised that his son Solomon would build one (2 Samuel 7). We read about this building project which took place under Solomon in 1 Kings 6 and 7.

When that building project is described, a man named Hiram is introduced. He’s a “worker in bronze…full of wisdom, understanding, and skill for making any work in bronze” (1 Kings 7:14). These are lofty words of praise, proving that you don’t have to be a king or priest to be recognized by God. It’s what we call the priesthood of all believers—God gives gifts of all kinds, and what matters is using them to His glory.

So, as you read along in 1 Kings 7, Hiram’s work is described in some detail. The Bible tells us, for example, the height and circumference of some bronze pillars that Hiram made. It tells us about lattices, basins, pots, shovels, all sorts of things. It goes on for a whole page and, if you’ve read the Bible, you know that there’s a lot of words on each page.

Personally, it’s tough reading for me. Nothing is underlined in my Bible after that part about him being full of wisdom, understanding, and skill. I even had to spell check “circumference” because I haven’t used that word since geography—oops, I mean geometry—class in 10th grade.

So I was thinking, this may not be very interesting to me but I’m sure it’s pretty interesting to a metalworker. Or, for that matter, to anyone who works daily with their hands, building stuff—unlike me.

Then you get to the end of this chapter that laboriously details Hiram’s work and you read this: “Thus all the work that King Solomon did on the house of the Lord was finished” (1 Kings 7:51).

Great work, “Solomon”!

“He gave gifts to men” – Ephesians 4:8.

The hardest prayer to pray

2010-08-22T22:37:00.003-04:00

Tonight I was over at a friends house for dinner. As we were getting ready we were chatting about church, and I mentioned that I had just started a short series preaching through the Lord's Prayer. I had started last week, so today covered "Your kingdom come, your will be done."

My friends wife immediately responded with conviction, "ooh, that's the hardest part." I was confused at first, and asked why she thought so. But the reason I was confused was because I was coming at the issue from the perspective of the preacher, and as a preacher, I wasn't to worried about this part. It's the whole "if you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you" part that has me worried. That's gonna be a doozy to preach on.

But my friend was commenting on the prayer from the perspective of one who prays. And she's right, it can be very humbling and difficult to pray "your will be done."

Our miscommunication simply highlights the particular difficulty of this passage. And that is, its not hard to understand, its just really hard to obey.

We know what the words mean, but to pray them in sincerity is difficult. It requires submitting our wills to God's, trusting that his way is always perfect, and he never gives his children anything less than the very best for them. Easy to believe in theory. Not always easy to practice.

Imagine That

2010-08-19T06:00:00.001-04:00

One of just a few books I would recommend to anyone, anytime is "Lost in the Middle" by Paul Tripp. He apparently intended to write a book about middle age, but actually wrote a penetrating analysis of life's disappointments and biblical hope, and one which deserves to be read and re-read by everyone over the age of, say, 25.

In a chapter entitled "Towers to the Sky," Tripp discusses the death of our dreams. And along the way, he discusses the fact that our imaginations are fallen. Yes, it turns out that Genesis 3 affected even our imaginations. We do not dream the way we should, hope the way we should, or respond to life's changes as we should. There is too much of ourselves in our plans, aspirations, and expectations - and far too little of God.

I was looking at Isaiah 40 with this in mind, since this majestic passage of Scripture closes with these hopeful words:

Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:30-31

This passage seemed to relate because it involves dealing with adversity - approaching the future with hope in God. Yet what struck me in Isaiah 40 was not these famous verses at the end. Instead, I was struck (in fact, struck down) by all the verses leading up to these...verses 1-29. This chapter proclaims God's eternal nature in contrast with man's; God's greatness in contrast to the microscopic significance of entire nations; and the weighty, holy reality of God in contrast to the emptiness and vanity of anything else we call "great." "The nations are a drop in the bucket... The nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or with what likeness will you liken him?" (vv.15-18)

An outline of Isaiah 40 might look something like this:
I. It's about God
A. It's all about God
B. It's all about God
II. It's about God
A. It's really all about God
B. It's really all about God
III. It's about God
A. It's all about God
B. It's all about God
a. Rely on Him and you'll be fine

Back to the imagination thing. One point Paul Tripp made in that chapter is that we should dream big dreams about God, and about our walk with God. We should not imagine the future with ourselves in the center, but with God in the center. So many of our personal hopes and aspirations need to be held to loosely. Over the history of the world billions of hopes and dreams have come crashing down... but God is still there.

The way we imagine our own futures will shift and change, sometimes causing a good deal of pain. But God will still be there. It's really all about Him.

The Church, the church, and the Kingdom

2010-08-17T20:39:00.002-04:00

Recently I was sitting through an exam, being administered by a committee of my denomination, to make sure I'm kosher. I wanted to share one part that especially stood out to me.

At one point I was asked to define the church. Interesting question, isn't it? Have you ever thought about that one? Well, thankfully, I had thought about it in preparation for the exam, and so I was ready with the following answer: The Church, before the law, under the law, and now under the gospel, is one and the same, and is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consists of all those who believe in him, together with their children.

Pretty good answer, huh? I sure thought so. But one person took issue with it. They were uncomfortable with the fact that I had identified the church and the kingdom of God as being the same thing. They thought of the kingdom of God as being bigger than the church. And in a sense they were right. The kingdom of God is bigger than the church, but it isn't bigger than The Church.

the church is, of course, standing for our own local churches. Whereas The Church is standing for the whole thing, the worldwide communion, crossing denominational lines, national borders, and any other arbitrary line you would like to draw.

Said committee member objected that, for example, when other committee member John Doe, who is a lawyer, goes to work pursuing justice for the oppressed, that's not church work, but it is Kingdom work.

Well sure, it's not the work of First Pres, or Second Pres, or Third, Fourth or Fifth Pres. But it is the work of The Church (aka the kingdom) worldwide. The work of The Church is not simply handing out bulletins and teaching Sunday school. The work of The Church is pursuing justice, loving mercy, caring for the widow and orphan, preaching the gospel to every nation, discipling, praying, loving your neighbor, giving out cups of cold water, relieving suffering, and standing up for what is right. Or, if I might put it this way, working for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

The work of The Church includes each member working at their vocation, using their gifts, and faithfully serving their creator whether they are actually in the church building or not. In this way we might say that 90% of The Church's work occurs outside the church!

Finally Getting Something Useful Done

2010-08-10T10:01:00.006-04:00

Think about the Apostle Paul. Here's a guy God used to plant churches, preach the gospel, produce inspired writings for the church, endure hostility, cast vision and receive visions. And he was basically a workhorse for the gospel.

So he's in prison, and there's not much he could do besides pray. But he didn't disdain prayer - in fact, he seemed to treasure it. Also, he didn't assume that the prayer bases were covered and therefore he could set the rest of the church to work on the "important" stuff - no, he urged prayer continually.

Colossians 4, written by an imprisoned Paul, has a few choice statements on prayer:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Colossians 4:2-4

Keeping "watchful" in prayer is a key phrase. Jesus used it, too. I don't know how to define it, but I think I've experienced it... it is through prayer that God begins to move our hearts, direct us, even warn us. Paul could be highly strategic for the gospel without ever leaving his cell.

So can we.

So should we.

Another quick take from Colossians 4:

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. Colossians 4:12

We should not only be watchful in prayer, but also struggle in prayer.

And if you look at both these short passages, look at what flows from prayer: witness to others, maturity, assurance of the faith.

In short, let's pray. It's not just for those who don't have anything better to do.

All Things Good

2010-08-02T05:49:00.003-04:00

The Bible continually calls us to praise God, who created everything. It even gives us ideas for how to do this. We should look at the oceans and the mountains and contemplate the power and strength of the God who made them. We should look at ourselves and ponder the knowledge and wisdom of the God who designed us. In the evening, on a clear night, look at the moon and stars and consider the God who is above and beyond all these.

Although the Scriptures frequently point us to the mountains, oceans, and stars, there are outskirts of God's creation that are also amazing. Deserts for example. Man, I love the desert. In the Bible, the desert (or "wilderness") is usually a metaphor. But even in that seemingly God-forsaken place, where things crawl, die, or beg for water, there is beauty. I know I'm in a minority, but I love the desert smells of heat and sand. I love the coyote-and-runrunner mountains and rocks that surround the desert. The Cactus is easily my favorite plant.

To appreciate the beauty of the desert, you need a few basic things. First, you need a good water supply. No one appreciates the desert when they're crawling through it; instead, they have mirages and wish for a better place. But if you have a good jug of water, or perhaps live in the desert where a water supply has been conveniently installed for folks like you--you can sit back and enjoy.

Oh, another thing you need is some shade, obviously. Standing out in the desert sun is wonderful, but everyone has their limit. A baseball cap might be all you need, or perhaps an air-conditioned house.

All this can be a wonderful metaphor for the way God cares for us in the wilderness, but what I really want to say is simply this. All of God's creation is spectacular, even those parts that get a little less play in the Bible. Because our God is a creative genius, an exquisite sculptor, and an unparalleled artist.

Our God is worthy of praise.

Why I Love Missions Trips

2010-07-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

Missions trips take many forms. I've been on teams that have visited slums, performed skits on the streets, witnessed to kids on spring break, built schools for deaf children, played basketball in the projects, hosted a Vacation Bible School, or combinations thereof.

Each of these trips have combined worship, work, witness, and (sorry, no "w" here) partnership with believers across the miles. For example, I just returned from our church's second project in the projects, which partnered us with a Brazilian and Hispanic church in Newark. In this case, partnership isn't even the right word--friendship (and pretty close friendship at that) is far more accurate. People from our churches are traversing up and down the East Coast to see one another at different points throughout the year, and of course all our teens have a dozen or more Newark Facebook friends.

So, here's what I love about missions trips: they provide a unique opportunity to experience the Christian life in its most distilled and undistracted form.

Here's what I mean. Over the course of, say, a week, the team works hard...together...in a spirit of worship and prayer. This is what God made us for! Check out Genesis 1 and 2 - we were made to be in relationship to God, and to one another, as we serve Him. Or consider the Great Commandment, Great Commission, or perhaps the New Testament as a whole. Or the life of Jesus. On a missions trip, all the pieces come together. And for a week or more, we get to experience what God made us for and what Jesus calls us to.

What I've found also is that this is a two-edged sword. Because a missions trip distills the Christian life down to its most basic priorities, we can easily experience angst as well as joy. We may see our sin and inability, our lack of genuine love, the no-worship zones of our hearts. But humility is a needed thing, and is the first step to seeing God forgive, transform, or soften, as the case may be.

I think these trips are especially important for young people, because it provides a template for what it means to serve Jesus Christ with all their lives. I've seen these trips serve as incredible turning points. I still remember the first trip I went on, how one of the principles was, "Before you do anything else, pray." So whenever there was a glitch, a problem, or an obstacle, we stopped to pray before we tried to work it out. That was formative; it stuck with me for the past 21 years.

One wisened teen said last week, when joy and enthusiasm for Jesus was running high, "It won't always feel this way. We'll have to go back to school and serve Jesus even when we feel all alone."

True.

But I would add, "You know now, more than ever, that you're not alone. And that there is something more glorious to reach for."

The Doctrine of Worry

2010-07-25T22:13:00.002-04:00

The street between our theology and our lives is a two way street. Which is to say, our beliefs about God have and influence on the way we live our lives. But we can also drive the other way. The way we live our lives, shows something about what we believe to be true about God. But unfortunately, when we drive this direction, the systematic theology of our lives tends to look very different.

The Doctrine of Worry: The belief that God does not care about us as much as he cares about sparrows. The belief that either God does not have a good plan for us, or if he does, he is unable to bring it about. The belief that God, who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, will somehow NOT along with him, graciously give us all things.

How to Apply: This doctrine ought to be applied whenever things don't go your way. For best results, begin to apply well in advance of any occasion in which you suspect things might not go your way. Remember to assume that your plan for your life is best, and that if God knows what's what, he will agree with you.

It's unfortunate how many of us subscribe to this doctrine. We might not acknowledge that we do, after all, it sounds ridiculous when you write it out. But remember, practical theology is a two way street, and we preach with our lives what we are unwilling to acknowledge with our mouths.

Some days this chapter is right up towards the front of the systematic of my life. That's embarrassing, and goes to show that no matter how well I can articulate the divisions of theology, I still have work to do in working my theology down into my heart. This happens best when the Spirit works the word of God into my heart. Then armed with this sword of the Spirit, I am more well suited to defend myself against lingering doubt and worry, a favorite tactic of the evil one.

Get on Yer Boots!!

2010-07-21T21:18:00.003-04:00

I find it only slightly ironic that in Ephesians six, which is the classic description of spiritual warfare, as Paul is describing the suit of armor that Christians need to be equipped with, the necessary footwear is the "gospel of peace." If you are going to go to war with the evil one, you need to know that you are completely at peace with God.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18, "God, through Christ reconciled us to himself." Or again in Romans 5, "since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God."

In Ephesians 2, Paul explains slightly differently, but to the same effect. He begins by saying that we were once, like the rest of mankind, children of wrath, at enmity with God. But God is great in mercy, and he made us alive together with Christ.

Peace with god. We have it, by faith. It is because God has reconciled us to himself, in Christ. And our peaceful relationship that we now enjoy with God is secure, because it is based on the work of Christ. If we had peace with God only so long as our performance lived up to his expectations, we would be walking on eggshells, and there would be no peace. But it is based on the death of Jesus on the cross. The hostility has been put away once for all because our sins have been decisively dealt with and forgiven.

This is not only good news as far as the whole salvation issue is concerned, it is also an indispensable piece of our Christian armor. Our knowledge of the gospel of peace, the fact that our relationship with God is in good order, and securely so, is part of what protects us from the attacks and flaming darts from the evil one.

The evil one does not want you to know that you have peace with God. He would rather you take your eyes off of the cross, put them on yourself and your own performance, and begin to entertain all sorts of doubts as to the status of your relationship. If you are insecure in your relationship with God, the darts of the evil one can land with deadly accuracy. Temptations to sin will feel persuasive and the allure of doubt irresistible. But the Pauline counterattack to this guerrilla warfare is a deep, heartfelt knowledge of divine reconciliation through the gospel of peace.

Of course, it would be impossible to read through Ephesians (especially 2:11-22 and 4:1-7) without realizing that the peace purchased at the cross extends to human relationships as well. Because I have peace with God, and you have peace with God, therefore you and I have peace between us as well. Growing roots of bitterness and stirring up dissension between believers is a favorite tactic of the evil one, and the boots of gospel peace are necessary for us to maintain a very practical, gospel-based, believer-to-believer peace among us.

Strange Pew-fellows

2010-07-17T21:18:00.002-04:00

Most American holidays are insignificant for the life of the church. Arbor Day, Valentines Day, President's Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Halloween, all of these come and go with nary a mention in my church. There are a few holidays, which are relatively insignificant as far as the liturgy goes, but which warrant a brief mention during the announcements. I'm thinking here of Mother's Day, Father's Day, Veteran's Day and New Years Day. None of these are Christian holidays, but we take the opportunity to note them, and wish well to those involved. Then you have Christian holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday, which all have great impact on the liturgy and life of a church.

But there is one American holiday in particular, which has a strange relationship with the church. I'm thinking of the fourth of July. Patriotism and Religion have always been strange pew-fellows, and the mixture has always made me uncomfortable. This year the issue was pushed to the fore, since the fourth fell on a Sunday. I would like to offer a few thoughts. I have intentionally waited a couple of weeks so that those who feel strongly about the issue might have the emotional distance necessary to consider the case anew.

In one sense, the fourth of July falling on a Sunday highlights the truth that each of us as human beings have a complex identity, that is made up of more than a single component. To use myself as an example, I am both a Christian and an American (also a husband, father, son, pastor, and many other things...). Of the two, I would identify primarily as a Christian, and secondly as an American. But of course, this is not to say anything amiss about America or my status as a citizen. I love this land, I feel a certain amount of patriotism and pride in living here, and unless God radically changes the direction of my life, I don't plan to move. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for living in this country at this point in time. I enjoy celebrating the fourth by eating a hot dog and watching fireworks.

But my identity as a Christian is much more significant for understanding who I am. I belong to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a member of the household of God, a part of the covenant family. And this family knows no boundaries, political or otherwise. It is an international family, composed of people who identify as citizens of all sorts of countries. This means for me, that I feel like I have more in common with a Mexican Christian or a Ghanaian Christian, than I do with an American who is spiritually lost.

So what are we to do when the fourth falls on a Sunday? Should we mention it? Should we sing the patriotic songs found in the far back of the hymnal?

I vote no. For two reasons. First, when we gather as the body of Christ, we have something so much more grand and glorious to engross ourselves in. We are gathering specifically as the church of Christ, in union with the saints throughout the world and across all the ages. We are not a civic organization, we are a gathering of the elect. This is a category that knows of no tie to political organizations or eras. When we come to church, the fact that most of us in the room are Americans is completely incidental.

Secondly, what would we say if a believer from Mexico, China, Peru or Kenya came to church on that Sunday, expecting to find a familiar culture of Christianity, and instead finding us enjoying our country rather than our covenant. I would be embarrassed to alienate a brother or sister in Christ by appearing to cherish our citizenship on earth as deeply as our citizenship in heaven.

Again, none of this should be taken as disrespect for our country or our history. I like our country, but I like the church even more. And as believers, our identity as members of the church will be far more eternally valuable than the fact that we were citizens of this particular nation.

The Error We Usually Make

2010-07-15T07:02:00.000-04:00

There is a story, somehow related to Martin Luther (I'm not sure how) about a man riding a horse. He was tired, and started slumping a bit to the left. As he got tireder and tireder, he slumped further and further, until all of a sudden he fell off the left side of the horse and landed in a heap on the ground. The man awoke with a start, and when he got back on the horse he solemnly pledged that he would never again fall of the left side of his horse. So he adopted a peculiar posture, leaning to the right. Of course, it wasn't long before he fell off the right side of the horse. He was so intent on not falling to the left, that he made the same error in the opposite direction. The goal, of course, is to ride the horse sitting straight up and down.

Many churches and theologies are like this hapless horseman. Especially those of us in the conservative branches of the church. We feel like the church fell off the liberal side of the gospel horse back in the mid-twentieth century, and we have seen the disastrous effects that caused. So now we are so committed to not doing that again, that we are leaning heavily towards the conservative side, and again we are in danger of falling off the horse, simply in the opposite direction. The goal remains being able to ride the gospel horse straight up and down.

How does one fall off the conservative side of the horse? A friend I was enjoying lunch with last week put it this way: Liberals tend to take away from scripture, conservatives tend to add to it, and both are equally bad.

Indeed. I thought this way of putting things was insightful, yet upon reflection so obvious as to hardly require explanation. Liberals have been taking away from scripture for years, no longer listening to its teaching on sexual ethics, the uniqueness of Christ, the resurrection, etc. Many of their churches can now be clearly seen lying in a heap in the ditch on the left side of the road.

Conservative churches, meanwhile, have been so afraid of that left ditch that we have built a hedge around the scriptural teachings to keep us from breaking them. To protect ourselves from sexual promiscuity, we have prohibited dancing. To protect ourselves from drunkenness we have prohibited all alcohol whatsoever. Now, of course, these prohibitions come with good intent. But the Bible says we are not to take away from it, or add to it. Is that a conservative church I spy in the right-hand ditch, lying in a heap while the gospel horse walks on unriden?

I am a conservative. Perhaps you are too, or perhaps you are a liberal (or perhaps you don't identify as either, the labels aren't really that important). Neither of us has yet perfected what it means to ride the gospel horse straight up and down. Neither our casting off of biblical burdens, nor our taking on of additional ones has taught us how to live in the freedom and joyous constraint of the biblical gospel. All of us must continually go back to the scriptures, find their level, and discern our own leanings.

And now we address the concubines.

2010-07-13T13:26:00.002-04:00

When King David flees from his son Absalom, who has conspired to overthrow his father, he naturally makes sure that all his loved ones (wives, children, servants) are kept safe. Basically, they flee with him. And he puts his trust in God during this tragic time, as you can see for yourself by reading Psalm 3 or 2 Samuel 15.

But...

But David is far from perfect. In fact, let's use the term he would use: he's a sinner. You can see all sorts of his faults on display in 2 Samuel 11-14. Specifically, it's 2 Samuel 12:13 where David admits his sin, though he also wrote a song about just how deep sin runs in Psalm 51.

Well, here's one way that David sinned when he fled from Absalom. He left 10 concubines in the palace to "take care of it" while everyone else fled for their lives. Maybe he didn't intend for harm to come to them, but it did--they were basically publicy raped (2 Samuel 16:22).

David didn't treat these concubines like he would his own flesh and blood. He treated them like, well, like servants--except that he had actual servants that he loved more and treated better. Not uncommon in the ancient world, before the clarity of the gospel, but nevertheless.

So I was wondering this. Who are those in our lives that we don't really truly love, even though we may act like it? Who is there that we pretend to love and cherish, and yet when the going gets tough--we leave them behind. Who are the people that we have fellowship with every Sunday, smile and greet perhaps, but they are totally expendable to us?

You might say, well, not everyone is family! We can't treat everyone like flesh and blood! But Jesus treated us that way. He laid down His most precious life for us, and He calls us to see every other believer as our brother or sister--as flesh and blood.

Some Wedding Cake Leftovers

2010-07-10T07:00:00.001-04:00

(nb: this should be consider part 2 of my earlier post.)

One of the most important times to keep in mind the reality of the wedding cake is in the midst of theological controversy. When discussing theological positions, or in thinking about those with which we disagree, it is important to remember all four layers of the cake, and to remember that we must always work from the bottom up. Let me explain with reference to a current theological brew-ha-ha.

N.T. Wright recently wrote a book on Justification that has caused quite a stir. He departs from the traditional understanding of Justification, and presents the case for a reading now commonly known (at least common to theologians) as the New Perspective on Paul. His book is notable is several regards, but not least for the way it covers all the layers of the cake.

The first half of the book, roughly 125 pages, discusses justification from a systematic theology standpoint. He defines what justification is, what it is not, how it relates to other doctrines (covenant, eschatology, Christology), what the component parts are (imputation, federal headship), etc. As you can see, the systematic discussion of justification is complex, but highly necessary. A few comments on application are interspersed, although that is not really the point of the book. And several of the topics require a discussion of biblical theology.

The second half of the book is dedicated to exegetical theology. In other words, recognizing that his new(ish) interpretation of justification must stand or fall based on the biblical evidence, he spends 125 pages (or so) discussing the key passages in Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans. The discussion of Romans alone receives almost 85 pages.

Whether or not Wright is right about all this is the question for another post, but methodologically, it is quite interesting. Wright has many critics, and many of them have gone to great lengths to point out how Wright is not clearly within the reformed tradition (historical theology), how his theology will have deleterious effects on people's lives (practical theology), or how he has misunderstood the theological categories (systematic theology).

But very few have attacked his understanding on the basis of his exegetical theology. And as Wright is correct to point out, exegesis is the foundation of the theological enterprise, and any critique or accusation of heresy must work from the bottom up. Or again, many are quick to point out that Wright is outside the bounds of the Westminster confession, or that he is far afield from Hodge or Calvin. But Wright is justified in responding - yes that's true, but I'm more in line with the scriptures. (Again, the question of if Wright is right about that claim must wait for another day, but I can appreciate the motivation!) In fact, Wright is now claiming the high ground of Sola Scriptura that the reformation tradition has held so dear.

If we see someone who appears to have a screwy systematic theology, as many have claimed Wright's theology of justification is screwy, then the first thing to do is to examine the foundation. If the foundation of exegesis is caddywompus, then of course the whole cake will be messed up, and we will have our explanation as to why everything looked odd to us. But if, upon examination, the foundation is solid, then we can examine the biblical theology and the systematic theology again with fresh eyes. Perhaps, where we thought the cake was crooked, we were really just holding our heads at a funny angle. Which is another way of saying that if the exegesis is correct, perhaps it is us who was wrong, and we need to adjust our own thinking, rather than accusing the other.

This is the real value of keeping the layers of the cake in order. If we do really believe in Sola Scriptura, that the Bible is the final arbiter of truth, then of course we must always consider potential heresy on the basis of the exegesis. Wright has done all his critics a huge favor in this last book, he has laid all his exegetical cards on the table. They are free for examination. If he is found to have laid a faulty foundation, perhaps misunderstood the historical context, or cherry picked the literary context, misapplied a Greek root-word, then the brew-ha-ha can end, and we will see clearly how this one mistake can transfer all the way up through the layers of theology. But on the other hand, we no longer have the luxury to simply criticize his systematic understanding, or his divergence from historical predecessors. He has tied his theology to the text, and it is to the text we must go.

The Wedding Cake of Theology

2010-07-09T15:31:00.002-04:00

Theology is like a wedding cake. And when done well, it is scrumptious and delicious. It's like a lovely four-tiered wedding cake. Oh, and it has a grooms cake on the side.

Believe it or not this is actually somewhat of a serious illustration. Because there at least five different types of theologies that we can be talking about when we talk about "theology." Most of the time we use the word "theology" in a fairly undifferentiated sense, and most of the time that works out just fine, but occasionally it is nice to be precise. There are five different things we are sometimes talking about when we discuss theology. Four of these stack one on top of the other, in the manner of a wedding cake, the fifth is related but separate, we'll call it the grooms cake.

Much like a four tier cake, it is essential that the layers are stacked in the correct order. You can imagine the disaster that would result if one put the smallest layer on the bottom, or the biggest on top. The bottom layer is foundational for the one above it, and the second layer in turn, is foundational for the layer on top of that one, etc. A visual aid would be nice here, but my art skills are pretty limited, so use your imagination.

The first (and foundational) layer is Exegetical Theology. Exegetical theology is what we are doing when we are talking about the meaning of specific verses, chapters, and books in the bible. When we discuss the literary context, the meaning of the Greek and Hebrew, the flow of the argument, and so on. This is the foundation of all theology. So long as we want our theology to be based on the Bible, we need to discuss what particular parts of the Bible mean. The rest of the theological cake rests on this.

The second layer is Biblical Theology. To engage is Biblical Theology, is to think about all the different parts of the bible, and put them together into a meaningful whole. It helps, in this regard, to remember that the Bible is a story with a plot, it has a trajectory. So when we think biblically-theologically about, say, the temple, we are not thinking about individual verses (although we need to have done that first!), we are thinking about the way the tabernacle was revealed on Mt. Sinai as a reflection of the garden of Eden, traveled through the wilderness, morphed into the Temple, was destroyed by Babylon, rebuilt by Zerubbabel, and replaced by Christ. Notice how was attempting to follow the biblical storyline, and to see and appreciate the twists and turns of the story, and effect of progressive revelation.

The third layer of the theological cake is Systematic Theology. Systematic theology as a discipline is now attempting to gather together everything we know from the bible about a particular topic and make a coherent sense of it. Again, this type of theology might not deal in detail with passages from the Bible, because it is assuming that that work has already been done.

The fourth and final layer of the cake is Practical Theology, also sometimes called Pastoral Theology, but it is practiced by all of us, not just pastors. All of us often engage in practical theology. It is what we are doing when we ask the question "How should we then live?" Once we have examined the biblical texts, become aware of the way the topic functions throughout the bible, and gathered all our knowledge together, then we are ready to put it into practice.

These four tiers are all important, and the order of them can not be changed, reversed or ignored, except to our own theological peril. But there is one more way we often talk about theology, and that is Historical Theology. This is what we are doing when we investigate when John Calvin thought about a particular issue, or how the Puritans viewed such-and-so. I consider this to be the grooms cake, because it is important, but not integrally related to the other four disciplines.

Perhaps an example would be helpful here. Say we are trying to think theologically about the Sabbath and its importance for the church today. We start at the bottom of the cake, by asking what does the Bible say about the Sabbath. So we carefully investigate Genesis 1-2, Exodus 16, 20, 31, Deut 5, Isaiah 58, Mark 2, John 5, Romans 14, Col 2, Heb 4, etc. This is the practice of Exegetical Theology. Next, we would step back and look at the trajectory. Was Sabbath observance of different importance at different periods of the covenant families life? How was it progressively revealed to Israel, and has the inauguration of the New Covenant changed how we think about it? This is Biblical Theology. The third step is to gather all our information together, and see what we can say from a systematic standpoint. Only after we have done all of these steps, are we in a position to ask how we are to live now? What should we do on Sunday afternoon? In other words, we can now pursue the task of relating the Bible to life, or doing Practical Theology.

And if you are still hungry, there is no reason to neglect the grooms cake, asking how different theologians throughout history have viewed the issue. This can be both interesting and informative, but we should remember to read with a discerning eye. Just because John Calvin wrote it, doesn't make it more sure than the Bible!

Let me explain why this cake is important. No one on earth is equally skilled at doing all five layers of theology, we all tend towards one or two, and are weaker in the others. Most pastors I know really excel at the top two tiers (systematics and practical), and of course, in order to be a pastor you need to know how to help people apply the Bible to their lives. But these pastors need to be humble in recognizing that they need help with the exegetical task, which is foundational to the whole enterprise. There are some pastors who really excel at exegesis, who love to read commentaries, who still know Greek and Hebrew five years after seminary. This is great because it is foundational, but they often need help in making practical application of the truths they discover to the lives of their parishioners.

It has been helpful to me when I read a particular theological piece to ask where it fits into the whole theological cake, what is supporting it, and what could potentially be the next step? Not all theology is done the same way. And the point of this exercise is not to say that one layer is the most important of all, but to say that it is absolutely vital that we have the whole cake!

Fighting the Devil by Doing the Dishes

2010-07-06T11:13:00.003-04:00

How do you imagine that the evil one will try to attack most Christians?

Most of us, when we think of spiritual warfare (if we think of spiritual warfare), probably think of some bizarre evil poltergeists of the ethereal world attacking missionaries on the front lines. Or perhaps you think of the blatant expressions of witchcraft, spiritism or paganism that exist here in the U.S. But according to Ephesians, we need to think a little closer to home.

Close to home, as in, in our homes. One of the classic Bible texts on the issue is the end of Ephesians 6. Paul says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Spiritual warfare is in fact a true reality (as Schaeffer would say, a true truth) that believers in Christ have to deal with. And it is not something that only effects the mission field (where is that again?).

It would seem that the thing which led Paul to write Ephesians 6:10-20 was in fact Ephesians 5:1-6:9. Paul had just finished his instructions for family relationships defined by the kingdom of God. He had been talking about husbands loving their wives, and wives submitting to their husbands. He had been talking about parents loving their children and children obeying their parents. And it seems to me that it was talk about these most basic of human relationships that led Paul to reflect on the fact that we as believers are under attack, and need desperately to put on the full armor of God.

Or again, in Ephesians 4:26-27 Paul had said that if we let the sun go down on our anger, then we are giving opportunity to the devil!

It's easy for us to think that in our highly technologized, squeaky clean suburban environs that the devil is nowhere to be found. He certainly wouldn't shop at Barnes and Noble.

But more than likely, the devil won't try to get you to renounce Christ all in one fell swoop. Instead he'll try to get you to watch TV instead of doing the dishes. He'll get you to harbor pride and savor bitterness, to not love your wife sacrificially as Christ loved the church. As Paul has just explained, a fully functional marriage relationship is a picture of the gospel, what would the evil one like to ruin more than that? The schemes of the evil one are powerful, but they are subtle. In The Screwtape Letters, the senior devil advises his devil-in-training to work on the Christians, and get them to think about how much that one certain look their mate gives bothers them, and to really stew on it. Sometimes its the littlest things that can give a foothold to the devil.

These are his schemes, and we need to put on the whole armor of God, lest we give in to the temptation to give that look when asked to vacuum.

Our Spiritual Immune Systems

2010-07-03T21:48:00.002-04:00

One of the things I've learned about since Judah was born three months ago is 'Passive Immunity.'

When babies are born, they have very weak immune systems. As a result, they are extra susceptible to getting sick. This is why you have to be very careful with little babies, if they get sick, they have very few resources to fight it, and sometimes they have to go to the hospital.

However, one benefit of breastfeeding is that babies receive passive immunity. They have no antibodies of their own, but some of their mother's antibodies are passed along through the milk, so that the babies receive the benefit of their mother's immune systems. The babies on their own are small and weak, but their mothers are strong, and by feeding on their mothers, they receive the benefits of all the immunities their mothers have built up by fighting off sicknesses.

When new Christians are first converted (and sometimes for a long time afterward!), they have very weak spiritual immune systems. In fact, given what Paul says in Ephesians 6 about the attacks which the evil one mounts against believers, we are all much too weak in ourselves. We are susceptible to all sorts of spiritual attacks, temptations, and defeats. However, as we feed on Christ in the Word, we receive the benefits of his strength.

Christ is strong, and has earned by his years of obedience to the Father complete immunity from (victory over) the evil one and his attacks. We are weak, but through our union with Christ, we share in his strength. The more we know Christ, both the holiness of his character and the vitality of our union, the more we are strengthened to stand against the wiles of the devil. If we are lax about our feeding routine, we will remain weak, with only our own meager strength to live by.

Bold Post about Preaching

2010-07-01T06:39:00.005-04:00

I like books about preaching, and I think I like lesser known ones the best. For example, I think that Kindled Fire Zack Eswine is quite good. It's a look at Charles Spurgeon's preaching in its historical/cultural context, and calls us to bold, Spiritual, applicable proclamation of the word.

Of interest to me was his argument that Spurgeon did not live in a "golden age" of preaching but rather went against the grain in his day and received a lot of push-back. Of course, he is today referred to as the "Prince of Preachers" (a term that really should go to Jesus, but my point is that people like him).

I recently began reading Tongues Aflame by Roger Wagner, who is an OPC pastor in Chula Vista, California. I attended his church for a while and remember seeing the book float around in manuscript form.

He says that the key characteristic of apostolic preaching was boldness. The word translated "boldness," he says, is the word most frequently applied to preaching in the book of Acts. And Paul famously asks for prayer in Ephesians 6 that he would speak the word with boldness. Without boldness, our preaching simply isn't biblical; so we better figure out what that means!

Wagner goes on to clarify that those with "bold" personalities are surprisingly often NOT the boldest preachers. Boldness is not a matter of personality or tone, but simply the willingness to directly, clearly speak the truth of God from His word. And it is ultimately a work of the Holy Spirit (man, can't we do anything on our own?).

Biblically, he draws on the example of Peter. He claimed to be bold, he said he would follow Jesus to death, but petered out. It wasn't until the Holy Spirit took over in Acts 2 that Peter was truly able to preach with genuine, Spiritual boldness.

Lord, grant us pastors grace to boldly speak Your word. And thank you, Lord, for those who do.

You - Yes, You - Bless the Lord!

2010-06-27T06:30:00.000-04:00

Psalm 134:

Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,
who stand by night in the house of the Lord!
Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!
May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!

It may seem obvious, but servants of the Lord need to bless the Lord. I was reading this the other morning as I was sitting in my church office, and I thought, "Hey, this means me."

This psalm applies universally, but is focused in particular on "full time" ministers. We need to begin each day and each new minute with blessings to the Lord on our lips. We need to constantly praise the One we serve, remembering that it's His goodness - His blessedness - that led us to serve Him in the first place. We need all our service to flow out of a real delight in Him, and desire for others to know Him.

Unfortunately, at least for me, we can fail to bless the Lord in our busyness to help others bless the Lord. Does that make sense? No, of course not. But it happens!

What a great reminder. What a great way to start each day.

I think it's great that the psalms ends - rather than begins - with a prayer for blessing on those who serve. Because there is no gain in serving the Lord apart from blessing the Lord.

A Calvinist Mystery

2010-06-25T13:30:00.001-04:00

Back in 1994 I came to embrace what is commonly called Calvinism and is better termed "the doctrines of grace." This helped me take passages like Ephesians 1:1-14 and 2:1-10, Romans 8 and 9, the Gospel of John, and many other passages at face value. I no longer had to ignore or explain away the New Testament teaching concerning predestination, election, mankind's deadness concerning spiritual matters, etc. There was clarity.

At that time, I would have been wary of any talk of "mystery" in the debate concerning God's sovereignty and man's free? will. It would seem any ground taken away from God would have to be parceled out to man, which didn't seem right.

Eventually, however, D.A. Carson helped me see that there is indeed a mystery. It is not so much a mystery concerning who wins in the battle of God's will and man's will, the classic tension. The Bible, I think, makes the answer to that one clear. Instead, it is a mystery within God Himself: He is both sovereign (His will reigns supreme) and personal (He interacts with humans, meaningfully).

So, in the Bible we see both these realities at work: Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; those who nailed Him to the cross did so according to the eternal decree of God (Acts 2:23). Yet Jesus cried out in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, pouring out His heart while surrendering to the Father's will. No Stoicism. Or, look at the missionary passion in the book of Acts: apostles who knew God was responsible for anyone's eyes being open to the gospel (Acts 13:48) yet prayed and preached up a storm to see it happen.

God is sovereign, and God is personal.

God calls the shots, and God truly, meaningfully responds to prayer.

What is commonly called Arminianism actually seeks to alleviate the mystery. This position claims, "Here's how it works: God looks down the corridor of time and sees who will choose Him; then, He chooses them." This attempts to give God's will and man's will equal footing, but really end up selling the farm to man--at the crucial moment, God is passive. While this sounds like a theological option, I don't think this is what the Scriptures as a whole teach.

Meanwhile, Calvinists can try to alleviate mystery another way. I think I've seen this more in deeds than in words, and it's what drives those who are more free-willish in their thinking crazy. It's when Calvinists undermine prayer, preaching, or sacrificial living by an attitude that speaks louder than words, "God will do what God will do, I will go back to my books now." It's not so much about how one is saved (it's all of God!) but of the means God uses. For example, He uses the impassioned prayers of those who love their friends and desire to see them saved--in short, he uses us!

I should note that God's choosing is also mysterious. The Bible refers to God's choice being based on love, and being for His glory, but does not give us an algorithm. The biggest mystery is that God would set His love on any of us! It certainly does not permit someone dead in sin to boast in the gift of resurrection life.

The Reformed tradition calls this the mystery of providence. And it uses the term "secondary causes" to refer to those means by which God accomplishes His will, including the examples I've given here already -- prayer, preaching, and so forth.

So here is my position: There is a mystery, but it is a Calvinist mystery. And fully believing in God's sovereignty is actually necessary for there to be a mystery.

Speaking as a Christian...

2010-06-23T09:36:00.002-04:00

The Bible has A LOT to say about the way we speak. In fact, one could probably argue that the way we speak should be one of the primary differences marking out those who believe in Christ.

How then should we speak? I was thinking about three recent experiences lately, about Christians talking about how to talk.

1. One of my professors from college once decided that he was no longer going to tell people he was proud of them. Instead, he would say that he was humbled by what they had been able to accomplish. Interesting. Pride, of course, is a sin. And though we all sort of know that we mean it in a good way, and not a self exalting way, still we should ask, why are we using the language of vice to express a virtue?

2. Christians often talk about Jesus coming and turning the accepted world of social norms upside down. N.T. Wright suggests that we instead recognize that it is the unbelieving world which has turned everything upside down, and Jesus came to turn it back right-side up. This flows into the third one...

3. A friend of mine used to often express the Christians sojourn in this world as being "in the enemy camp." I once suggested to him that perhaps we should say instead that the enemy is in our camp. After all, this is my father's world, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." Why give away the whole thing to unbelievers?

Simple suggestions like these about the way we speak are important. As my rhetorically inclined brother will no doubt attest, the way we use language not only expresses a worldview, it shapes and creates a worldview. Speaking as a Christian means finding simple ways to create and maintain a Christian point of view in an increasingly upside down world.

Ministry Endurance

2010-06-20T08:00:00.001-04:00

I was wandering the Charlotte airport the other day, taking some time to pray as I waited for my flight to board. And as I prayed, I began begging (I know it sounds unseemly) God for endurance and for zeal over the long haul.

It was one of those times when God sent an answer to prayer, or at least a fairly clear message, quickly.

I wandered past one of those book and magazine stores, and my eye caught a spinning rack filled with Christian books. Couldn't help but take a look of course, and at the very bottom of the spinning rack--underneath the books about visits to heaven and hell--there was a tiny paperback book about Christian leadership. It was by a guy named Jeff Iorg (I've never heard of him, have you?).

There was a chapter in his book called "Sustaining Passion." I read through the entire chapter.

What he basically said was this. Sustaining passion in ministry is actually about sustaining compassion for people. Don't try to take the direct route--maintaining passion for ministry per se. Instead, invest in the people around you, love them, spend meaningful time with them so that you truly like them. It is this that will sustain you.

He looked at Jesus through this lens. He wrote about how much time Jesus spent with people--by intentionality, but also by the nature of the culture of the day. The lifestyles of Jesus' day required much lengthier times with people as you walked together, ate together, etc. Much different that the quick runs we do into people's lives, as if they were 7-11 stores.

I hadn't ever heard this path to ministry endurance prescribed. It struck me as quite true. Endurance in ministry is not about being passionate for the concept or systems of ministry, even less is it about being passionate for our chosen career path. Dare I say, it's not about being passionate for theology unapplied or for pure worship or for being missional or for any other isolated cause. It's about having compassion for people, so that we really truly want to bring them to Jesus again and again.

I realize this is only one part of the Great Commandment to love God and love others. Surely ministry endurance is about both sides--and this post has done no justice to the absolute desperate necessity of ever growing in our love for our Savior God. And in fact, Jeff Iorg mentioned in his little chapter that Jesus even removed himself from people to spend time with his heavenly Father. But that will need to be a different post for a different day.

Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. Surely that joy involved his people, those for whom he died, else he would have never set foot on our globe. Let's follow those footsteps.

The Theological Question of Alvin Greene

2010-06-17T08:56:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: This is a blog of theological reflection, not political rambling. Any political opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily all moose in general. These opinions, while probably correct, are free to be disagreed with, and should not be the cause of hating anybody. Especially me.

South Carolina has been the state of political weirdness lately. Most recently we have Alvin Greene. Mr. Greene is an unemployed veteran, who came out of nowhere to win the democratic nomination for the Senate. Many people are suspicious (namely the democrats), because, to be blunt, he doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing. Moreover, some people are worried, and Christians are beginning to engage in the necessary theological reflection.

The is at least one camp of people that are rightly concerned. Because the scriptures tell us that our government officials are God's servants, and they do not bear the sword for nothing, it is important that we take elections seriously. We are right to take seriously our responsibility to elect those candidates who will fulfill their obligations.

But there is a second camp of people who see the tragedy even deeper. Because the scriptures speak of the authorities that be, being 'appointed' by God, perhaps the nomination of Alvin Greene is worse than we thought. Perhaps God is putting Greene in a position of power, because he is the kind of candidate that we deserve. That is, we no longer deserve good leadership, and the appointment of Greene is going to be the beginning of the end.

Both of these positions have biblical truth within them. And hopefully they both lead to concern and prayer that God will be gracious. However, there is also a third perspective that I think has even more merit.

One of my college profs had this remark on his blog... "The problem, of course, is that no one has the capacity to see the relative insignificance of the elections, except the poor. They know that they will be excluded no matter who sits in what chamber to cast votes. One can not have justice without just persons, and one cannot have just persons unless one begins with proper worship of the Triune God."

Indeed, if any good can come from the seeming absurdity of Greene's nomination (and it can!), it is that he is a stark reminder to Christians not to put our faith in the political system! Neither democrat, nor republican, nor any other political party in all creation has the power to be the instrument of the renewal of creation. Such is the task of the church, which is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the church which holds the keys of the kingdom. It is the church which will inherit the new heavens and the new earth. It is the church which is a living preview of the New Creation, where truth is told, people are treated fairly, all are loved. Such things can only come about through the gospel of Christ, and 'proper worship of the Triune God.'

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 20:7

Fear. Blessings.

2010-06-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

I've been making my way through the psalms this year, often reading several at a time. One of the benefits of this is seeing how certain themes are clustered together, so that several psalms will hit the same target from different angles. Or they might even offset each other.

For example, Psalms 127, 128, 129, 130 speak of God's blessings on the righteous--but speak of our absolute dependence on the Lord for blessing (127), our need to fear the Lord to obtain blessing (128), and that even the blessed man is at times afflicted (129). He hopes in the Lord (130) as he awaits God's promised blessings.

Also, I noticed a significant connection between some familiar verses in Psalm 128 and 130:

"Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways!" (Psalm 128:1)

"But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared." (Psalm 130:2)

Time for one more observation? I was thinking based on 128:1 that we often ask God to bless people we love. Well, maybe we should ask God to help them fear Him. The blessings will indeed follow.

Humility in a Time of Twitter

2010-06-10T12:57:00.003-04:00

He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
Psalm 25:9

Inasmuch as I consider pride and self-interest to be the root of all other sins, I also consider that humility is the beginning of godliness.

A humble spirit is one that desires for God to be glorified in all things, "He must become greater, I must become less." A humble spirit also desires the good of others, and desires to see them happy, even when it comes at a personal cost to oneself. It considers others as more important that itself (Phil 2:3). A humble person is willing to set aside their own interests, in order that the focus might be elsewhere. A humble person does not want to be the center of attention.

As I've thought this week about what it means for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, I realized that it takes a lot of humility. To sacrifice your own desires in order to build others up. In fact, humility is really just another word for love.

Humility is a difficult virtue. Most of us are hard wired to pursue our own desires at all costs, and to avoid personal sacrifice for the sake of others. I know that for myself, I need to find more practices, and surround myself with more influences that teach humility, rather than those that feed my illusion that I am, in fact, the center of the universe.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
1 Peter 5:5

Is Creativity a Pastoral Gift?

2010-06-08T11:19:00.002-04:00

I suspect that creativity is an underappreciated pastoral gift.

We live in a “creative age,” and the church has incorporated artistry into its worship and websites, but I’m not talking about graphic design or video.

I’m thinking, rather, of a pedagogical creativity that aids preaching and teaching. Jesus was extremely creative, as the parables reveal. These were not just cute stories thrown in to keep the hearers’ attention; these were potent illustrations that challenged and even condemned the hearers. And they were tightly packed, which is another way of saying they packed a lot of punch.

Creativity is also a great benefit for how we structure our teaching as well. Do all our messages follow a predictable pattern, or do we have a variety of means by which to draw people into the text or topic at hand? When we teach a class, have we considered some unique ways to keep interest or reinforce the lessons? Creativity can be as simple as “mixing things up” with testimonies, times of prayer, or hands-on application. Yet at the same time, we need to be pastorally wise and not merely clever; creativity has to be in the service of instruction.

Here are a few other areas where creativity comes in handy…
- Leading prayer. Don’t be rigid, but be creative with how you guide others in prayer. Pray through Psalms, follow the pattern of the Lord’s prayer, read (or sing) the words of a rich hymn and follow it up with praise/prayer, take requests, change course midstream, don’t take requests, gather in a circle around someone and pray for them, take walks through the neighborhood and pray for it, etc.
- Developing outreach or other ministries. I think being “missional” involves prayerful creativity. What works elsewhere probably won’t work in your church. Nor will it be what your church needs. But as you pray, there might be an idea that surfaces that is uniquely fit to your community and circumstances.
- Sharing the gospel. Boy does this require creativity. No two conversations are the same!
- Children. I think this is obvious… and maybe the lesson here is that it needs to be more obvious to us when we’re dealing with adults!

Thinking about Jesus again. Not only were his words the most creative in history (partly this is because truth seems creative when you are swimming in falsehood), but he also “mixed things up” a bit didn’t he? He healed by touch, by spit, by mud. He gave some prepared lessons and grabbed teachable moments. He prayed for and with people. He put children in the center and others on the spot. He gave examples, set an example, used parables, pronounced woes, pointed at temples, surprised and tested listeners, gave away food, and instituted sacraments. And he approached subject matter in unique, provocative ways—but always grounded in truth.

Unless there are any objections, I move that we approach ministry with both wisdom and creativity.

How (not) to use words.

2010-06-06T13:25:00.003-04:00

One of the things I've been impressed with since studying at Erskine Seminary, is the desire of my professors to be Christian Scholars. Not only that they are scholars who are Christians, and not only that there scholarship is focused on Christian issues, but the way that they strive to do all of their scholarship in a Christian way. That is, they seek to represent their opponents fairly. They make honest efforts not to exaggerate claims. They undertake scholarship as a means to sanctification, not a means to publication.

Even in 'regular life,' that is, outside the world of academia, I've noticed the easy tendency to not represent others fairly when we disagree with their position. Even in the church this happens as we discuss the differences between various theological positions. Two words stand out to me which are commonly misused.

The first is the word "legalism." We all know legalism is a bad thing, and we are quick to pin the label on those we disagree with. But do we really know what it means? Technically, the word "legalism" means the belief that people are saved by keeping the law (of Moses). I don't believe I've ever met a Christian of any stripe who believes this. However, we often throw the word around in an informal way to describe anyone who we believe puts too much emphasis on obedience rather than grace and mercy. But I can tell you, I've been preaching through Ephesians, and Paul puts an awful lot of emphasis on living a holy life. Does this make Paul a legalist? Me genoito!! Paul believes firmly that salvation is by grace, but that the life of faith also leads to a life of obedience.

I propose that we take more care in using the label 'legalist.' Let's honestly appraise the full position of those with whom we may disagree, then give them the benefit of the doubt if we are uncertain. A zeal for holy living should not automatically be equated with legalism.

The second word is related, though opposite, "antinomiansim." This slightly less common word refers to those who believe that all forms of law have been abdicated by Christ, and that there is no expected ethic for those saved by grace. Those this careful definition is rarely used. More commonly, the word is thrown around in an imprecise, pejorative sense, as a label for those who emphasize our freedom in Christ. Again, in my experience, I don't believe I have ever met a true antinomian, who believes that the grace of Christ really can lead to any conceivable life. I have, however, met people who believe it is ok to drink beer. And more often than not, it is these people, who get labeled, by those whose convictions differ.

Again, I propose that we exercise more care, and more importantly, more Christian love in the way we discuss those with whom we may disagree. What scripture are they attempting to explain, understand, or apply, that we have not thought about as carefully? I believe that if we speak more carefully, it will not only help to demonstrate Christian unity, but also open our eyes to areas of sanctification and growth that we have hitherto be blinded to.

The Day of the Groom

2010-06-03T15:29:00.002-04:00

Several years ago my friend Matt got married. The wedding was beautiful and memorable, if slightly unconventional.

The minister took his place at the center of the stage. Matt stood alone in the aisle facing him. The minister began by acknowledging the inviolable place of the bride as the queen of wedding day festivities. Everything is about the bride. This is her day, if the bride ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. And yet, the minister continued, treading now in dangerous waters, this is not the biblical model. In the bible, the wedding day is The Day of The Groom!

And indeed it is so. Consider the description in Revelation 19 of The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The consummation of heaven and earth is described as the wedding banquet uniting Christ (the groom) to the church (the bride). This is a wedding ceremony designed to honor and glorify the accomplishments of the groom. It is he who has gone out to find himself a wife, he who has won her over and pledged himself to her, and it is he who has purified his bride, in order that she might become his radiant wife! The bride invites her guests to join in celebrating the glory of the groom, and her happiness in him.

Consider this image a bit further. In the OT the covenantal relationship with God and his people Israel was occasionally described as a marriage covenant, Israel was engaged to by the Lord's. And yet, too often, this metaphor was the more memorable because of the way it was used to heighten the shame of Israel in her disobedience. Hosea famously is commanded to marry a prostitute as an object lesson demonstrating the spiritual whoredom of Israel. In disobeying, and seeking after other gods, Israel was acting faithless in regard to her engaged Lord.

What would the groom to with his unfaithful bride? He would take upon himself the responsibility of cleansing her, purifying her, forgiving her, and getting her all cleaned up until she was worthy to be his own wife. Ephesians 5 says as much,

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

At the wedding supper of the lamb, although we, as the bride of Christ, will be presented to him "holy and without blemish" all the glory will go the our faithful, loving, sacrificial, glorious groom. And when people look at the bride in her splendor, they will marvel at the power of the groom. And we will get to enjoy his goodness forever.

Then the minister, having offered some such explanation, looked at Matt and said, "Go claim your bride." Matt turned around and walked back down the aisle, and out the back door of the church. We sat in silence. A few moments later, all the shutters on the enormous church windows were opened, and the previously dim sanctuary was filled with light. Then Matt appeared again at the back of the church with his bride on his arm, and marched triumphantly up the aisle. The groom had won his bride and she was beautiful. We celebrated, and looked forward to the day...

Having an Answer

2010-06-01T06:33:00.002-04:00

Do you want to share the gospel with others? Do you want to have an answer to those who question the faith? Here's the most important ingredient: assurance of your salvation.

The psalmist prays for this in Psalm 119:

"Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord,
your salvation according to your promise;
then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me,
for I trust in your word." (vv.41-42)

Similarly, David prayed in Psalm 51: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit, then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you" (vv.12-13).

It's not just an Old Testament concept, either. Far from it, in fact. Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues in Joy Indescribable that the "power from on high" Jesus promised in Acts 1 is expressed primarily in the assurance of salvation. The "power" is not speaking in tongues, prophecy, or miracles, though all those are wonderful. Assurance of salvation -- aka faith -- is the fundamental gift of the Holy Spirit that is then expressed in many different ways, resulting in bold, powerful, effective witness to others.

I tend to agree with Lloyd-Jones, and with the psalmists.

Deeply Troubled

2010-05-28T06:07:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, President Obama closed his prepared statements concerning the BP oil spill with these chilling words:

This oil spill is an unprecedented disaster. The fact that the source of the leak is a mile under the surface, where no human being can go, has made it enormously difficult to stop. But we are relying on every resource and every idea, every expert and every bit of technology, to work to stop it. We will take ideas from anywhere, but we are going to stop it.

There is a parallel here to humanity's ultimate problem, namely our problem with sin and evil. This condition is also deep below the surface, pouring out hazardous effects, and "very difficult to stop" (understatement!).

In this sense, the oil spill is not unprecedented but precedented.

This oil spill is deeply troubling. It is an example of how unseen human sins (whether selfishness, sloppiness, or greed) spill over and produce tangible, huge, deadly results. The prophet Hosea said that because of human sin, animals and fish die (Hosea 4:3)--seems like a strange verse until something like this takes place!

Also deeply troubling is the idea that we, as a nation, would rely solely on human willpower and ability to solve such a problem. President Obama referred to relying on "every resource...idea...expert...technology." Another prophet, Isaiah, pronounced woe upon those who "rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD" (Isaiah 31:1).

I once engraved a Bible with the slogan "No Horses!" Unfortunately, this is a longstanding American tradition. We have a "can do" attitude, which serves one well when combined with praise--but serves any person or nation poorly when combined with pride.

I pray for a resolution to this disaster. I praise God for a resolution, through Jesus, of humanity's ancient and disastrous decision to turn away from our gracious Creator.

Like Shopping on an Empty Stomach

2010-05-24T06:34:00.000-04:00

Have you ever gone grocery shopping on an empty stomach? I have, and it's not a good thing. Suddenly, junk foods which might otherwise hold no appeal to me have a strange allure. Pre-prepared items which I normally ignore train their tractor beam on me, and I am powerless to resist. There is no shortage of temptations in the grocery store, and when I am hungry my will power is at its weakest.

What is the solution? Should I just grit my teeth, furrow my brow, and keep walking through the junk food aisle, determined to do my darnedest? Do I just need to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, strengthen my will power, and do the right thing? Thankfully, no. My will power is not much to write home about, but there is a much easier way to avoid the power of temptation. Eating. If I've eaten a good meal at home before I go, I can cruise the aisles of the grocery store with ease, impervious to the temptations around me. When my stomach is contentedly full of good food, the temptations of bad food are weak.

Living a faithful Christian life is the same way. Normal everyday life is full of temptations. Temptations to lust, temptations to greed, temptations to anger, discontentment, irritability, meanness, pride, you name it. And let's face it, some of these temptations are strong. They catch me in their tractor beam and try to pull me in. They promise happiness, joy, fulfillment, meaning and significance in life. Everything will just be some much better, and my life so much richer if I just give in a little bit. Or so they want me to believe.

How do I resist such temptations? Again, my will power is nothing special. I could just try to work up within myself an extra batch of resolve, really hunker down, and hope to do better next time. But as we all know, this will never work. I need stronger medicine.

The key is to eat a good spiritual meal before going out and facing the world. If I can get my heart to be happy in God, content with his goodness, thankful for the grace of Christ, and moved by his undeserved love, then my heart will not be looking to be filled elsewhere. The power over temptation is to starve it at the source. If my heart is empty, and my soul hungry for meaning, then I am susceptible to all sorts of temptations and false promises. But when my heart is full, and my soul satisfied with the love of Christ, then the empty promises are more easily ignored.

The key is not to rely on my own will power, that would be like purposefully shopping on an empty stomach and trying not to come home with any junk food. The key is to know the grace of Christ in the gospel, and to put it to good use!

I Can't Preach 35

2010-05-21T06:12:00.003-04:00

No doubt you've heard the Sammy Hagar song, "I can't drive 55." It's one of those contemporary songs that is so well patterned after the psalms - specifically, the psalms of lament.

One foot on the brake, and one on the gas, hey!
There's too much traffic, I can't pass, no...

It's also a psalm/song about standing on principle:

Go on and write me up for 125
Post my face wanted dead or alive,
Take my license and all that jive,
I can't drive...55!

Now, this is how I often feel about preaching. In seminary we practiced preaching 30-35 minute sermons. In many Presbyterian churches, that's about the allotted time. And it's really, really hard to preach a 35 minute sermon.

Picture the scene. The apostle Paul is passing the torch to Timothy and the conversation runs something like this...

Paul: I charge you in the presence of Jesus Christ who is going to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and kingdom...
Timothy: I can tell you're serious about this...
Paul: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.
Timothy: Okay, I can do that. I've still got a lot to learn, though.
Paul: Here's what I want you to do. I want you to reprove, rebuke, and exhort.
Timothy: All three?
Paul: It's absolutely vital. People are at all different places before the Lord.
Timothy: Alright.
Paul: And also, you need to do this with all patience and teaching.
Timothy: What do you mean?
Paul: You can't just go in their with guns blazing. You need to show them the precious word of God and the beauty of Jesus, and show them how the Christian life flows from that. I would encourage you to use some personal illustrations, because they need to see your progress and example.
Timothy: This is a lot of work.
Paul: There's nothing more important.
Timothy: How much time do I have?
Paul: Could you keep it to about 30 minutes?
Timothy: What?
Paul: Oh, and you also need to do the work of an evangelist. This is absolutely necessary if you are to fulfill you calling. So make sure that you are speaking not only to believers but to unbelievers. You are a missionary as well as a pastor, don't you ever forget it.
Timothy: Does that buy me some more time?
Paul: Maybe five more minutes.
Timothy: Okay, I get it... you're kidding, right? Or maybe you mean to do 35 minutes each day?
Paul: No, just once a week. And did I mention you have to fend off the wolves, too?

Now, don't get me wrong. There are times when you need to drive slow, and there are times when you need to preach short. For example, you don't go speeding through a school zone where children may be playing. Likewise, when you speak to children you have to keep things pretty simple. Also, I don't commend reckless driving... or speeding around when you haven't been adequately trained and still have your learners' permit.

But, man, it's hard for me to contain a message to 35 minutes these days. I begin the week looking at a short text and think, "This week I'll keep it simple." After a few hours of study I'm back to Sammy Hagar mode. Burdened with much that I want to communicate in terms of context, explanation (teaching), application (rebuking, exhorting), illustration, some verses from another part of the Bible to bring to bear... and I haven't even begun to think about evangelism! By the end of the week, I'm more concerned about how to trim my message than about the message itself.

From the day I was converted, the role models in my life have preached sermons of 45 minutes to an hour. This has included preachers from all kinds of backgrounds--Calvary Chapel, Non-Denominational, Orthodox Presbyterian and PCA, and of course the Acts29 guys who never stop till they're done.

I can't preach 35.

Do an easy thing.

2010-05-20T14:31:00.000-04:00

Recently I saw a book written by the Harris brothers called Do Hard Things. I loved it. Well, I loved the title, I haven't read the book. The title, however, really resonated with me. After thinking about it, I would only add this: Do an easy thing.

When I was in college, anytime I thought about future career options, I only knew that I wanted to do something hard. I wanted something significant. I didn't want to do just any old job, but rather something that would challenge me, and allow me to challenge others. I enjoyed being around people with high standards, and gravitated towards those professors who really pushed me to excel.

Perhaps this is part of what drew me towards the ministry. Being in the ministry is nothing if not a challenge, and that aspect is alternately enjoyable and frustrating. I think that part of what makes ministry satisfying is the conviction that I am doing something significant for the Lord, that being in His service is an important and necessary place to be. I think this also speaks to why so many people find mission trips so rewarding, because we know that beneath it all we are not only serving others, but we are serving our Lord, and he is pleased with our obedience.

This is all good, and far be it from me to speak ill of mission trips, service, or obedience. But I am beginning to find in my own soul a particular occupational hazard that can affect anyone who serves regularly. It's easy to go from thinking that the Lord is pleased with my obedience (which he is), to thinking that he is now pleased with me because of my obedience. And this is a whole different thing.

You see, the gospel says that God is not happy with me because of how much I do for him, he's pleased with me because of what Christ has done for me. In fact, the requirement of the gospel is not the we serve God, but that we stop serving, and allow Christ to serve us! Remember how hard that was for Peter? To sit down and allow Jesus to do the work of washing his feet was unthinkable to him. And yet me must. We must sit down and allow Jesus to do all the work.

For some of us, particularly those with a sturdy work ethic and an inclination to get busy, this is difficult. But I believe this can be a salutary exercise, to occasionally sit down and stop serving. Just do an easy thing. And remember that God is still pleased with you, as he always is, only because of the work of Christ.

Law and Love

2010-05-18T08:29:00.002-04:00

Last week my parents were visiting from Colorado. It was overcast and rainy a couple of the days. During one of those overcast days, Aubrey wanted to go cycling. It hadn't rained in a while, and the roads were dry, so she asked if I thought it was ok to go. Now, Aubrey is an adult, and she doesn't normally have to ask my permission to go for a bike ride. So she mentioned off-handedly to my mom that I don't like for her to go riding in the dark or in the rain, both situations which make it difficult for drivers to see cyclists. My mom joked that I was kind of a legalist for imposing so many rules. (See, I guess my love of nerdy theological jokes is inherited.)

Unfortunately this is the way some people think about the law of God. They see all the rules, and assume that God is just a big kill-joy, who loves rules for the sake of rules.

However, the reason I don't like Aubrey riding her bike in the dark or in the rain on busy roads is because I love her very much. I love her enough that I don't like when she does dangerous things. I believe that when God gives rules for his people that his motivation is the same. He loves us very much, and won't have us doing things that don't promote long life and happiness. Because God knows that slander, idolatry, anger, sloth and covetousness don't tend toward life, he tells us to avoid them. He loves us too much to allow us to do things that will only damage ourselves. God is not a kill-joy, rather, he won't permit us to kill our own joy through sin. He knows what is good for us!

Please Be Excited

2010-05-12T05:00:00.001-04:00

When I was a kid, I attended a Lutheran church that was fairly liturgical. I still remember a rousing moment in the communion liturgy where we sung, "This is the feast of victory for our God!" I should note that my mom took me to a Pentecostal Church which was rousing in its own way.

When I was a young adult and God had recaptured my heart, I made my way through a few different denominations. For a while, I was in a nondenominational church, but then began attending an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in San Diego. These people knew how to sing hymns, play trumpets, and (just for the record) eat together. My favorite moment in the service was when we stood up after the offering and sung the doxology. Many voices joined together singing the doxology is a beautiful and powerful thing.

Recently, I attended a church that in PCA circles is considered more traditional. There were responsive readings, confessions of faith and of sin, and things were carefully ordered. And man, it seemed listless. And lifeless. I'm not at all judging the hearts, it just honestly made me sad. For whatever reason, people just seemed to mumble their way through the order of worship -- or was it just me?

And so, I was mulling things over in my mind. I didn't want to stereotype (what we call) traditional worship. After all, I do believe in blended worship which requires 1/3 to 1/2 parts traditional songs and forms. In fact, counting the sermon as "traditional" brings us to about 3/4, but anyway...

Here's my thought.

The challenge of any kind of worship is that people have to really understand, and have some excitement about, what they're doing, saying, and singing. In fact, it's not enough to be enthusiastic - it must be the joy of the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17) based on the gospel, not just the joy of nailing the right note (a joy I will sadly never experience). It is mere tradition if it is not invested with some enthusiasm concerning the amazing gift of the gospel. Pastors, teach your people what the forms mean and generate some enthusiasm about the creeds, readings, etc. And don't just do it by explaining or overexplaining everything. Be creative.

This is a problem whether in a traditional or contemporary setting. Lively music can stir excitement about the wrong thing (the cute worship leader or catchy melody). Revelation 3:1 should scare us all. So, we're all in desperate need of God's grace... to enflame our hearts, and to grant us the ability of sing, pray, recite, and listen with enthusiasm for the gospel: what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do!

But again... Pastors, please, I beg of you. Be excited. It starts with us.

Or better yet, it starts with Jesus. And so, Jesus, I beg you, grant us hearts that are truly roused by what You have done!

Mother's Day Sermons

2010-05-08T22:14:00.003-04:00

One of the vexing questions every pastor faces is whether to preach a Mother's Day sermon.

On the one hand, it's Mother's Day. On the other hand, Jesus didn't invent or command (or for that matter forbid) Mother's Day.

On the one hand, everyone will be thinking about Mother's Day. On the other hand, some people are bummed out by Mother's Day. Especially if their first reminder of it is through your sermon!

On the one hand, churches want to encourage and strengthen families. On the other hand, we shouldn't idolize family or neglect singles.

So what's the official stance here at Moose Are? Well, Jeff can weigh in later. My thoughts are these:

First of all, I was a single guy till I was almost 31 years old. I heard many Mother's Day sermons when I was twentysomething and single, and it never bothered me. It seemed to me that the topic applies to everyone, because we all need discernment about God's design for motherhood--especially in our confused culture. We all should want to minister to, or to encourage, moms (not least of all our own). And so forth.

Second, if you are going to preach a Mother's Day sermon, be biblical. Sometimes churches praise mothers on their day and lambast fathers on theirs. Or, sermons can be a long list of what it means to be a great mom--but Jesus didn't come to call the righteous moms, but the sinful moms.

Yet the best approach, I think, is this. Don't preach Mother's Day sermons or Father's Day sermons every year. Do it occasionally. Instead, frequently apply God's word to moms and dads as you're preaching throughout the year. I'd say easily 40-45 weeks of the year, you should be saying something--even if it's brief--to dads and/or moms. Give concrete examples from your own experience of parenting whenever able.

The advantage here is that you avoid needing to do a "special series" on child-raising or marriage (although these are fine, if God leads). You won't feel as if you haven't addressed these important topics because you do so frequently, and from many angles. Another advantage is that you don't just say the obvious. If you're preaching a sermon on heaven, tell parents what it means to have an eternal perspective not only on their lives but for their kids. If you're preaching on the church, tell parents the importance of involving their kids in worship and/or the body of Christ. Of course, another advantage is that this doesn't give the appearance of disregarding singles, widows, etc., for weeks at a time.

And lest I be unclear... Mother's Day sermons are great. I've preached 'em, I've appreciated hearing 'em. We need 'em. But I just think the best approach renders it unnecessary to have one every year.

I'm thankful for my wife... who is, in fact, a mom too. She's the one who encouraged me to follow this approach. She's smart, and I like that about her.

Two Conversations

2010-05-05T10:36:00.003-04:00

Just finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, which I began reading about six weeks ago. Everyone else began reading it seven years ago and finished six years and 345 days ago. I know not every Moose reader is a fan of Miller or emergents, emergings, etc. But I'd like to say a few words about this book.

First, I think it's a well written, honest, and sometimes humorous piece of writing. I think it's orthodox, overall, though Miller is not a theologian. And I think Miller shows himself to be a pretty thoughtful guy. There's a certain type of guy who observes and absorbs the world around him, and actually has something interesting to say about it; these are the true, or at least the better, artists. I wish I was more like that.

Reading BLJ is also an interesting experience because it captures well a certain "moment" in American Christianity. Miller articulated well the feelings of a younger generation of evangelicals who were (and are) concerned deeply with the issue of authenticity. If there's one theme that runs through the book, it's authenticity. Coming out of a certain brand of evangelicalism, Miller was discouraged by that which seemed fake, pretentious, unnecessary, and ultimately sub-biblical on the evangelical landscape.

This attitude, arising in the 1990's, marked the rise of the emerging (good) and emergent (not so good) churches, which were tired of the business model of churches, the CEO model of pastors, and the marketing model of evangelism. While not completely free of those traps, I think that for this reason the "emerging church" trend, when it remained biblically grounded, marked a healthy protest. As with all protests, though, there is pride and there are mistakes - in fact, Miller takes jabs at himself over this too.

I realize you are not reading this post anymore since you knew all this already. But for those of you who may have scrolled quickly to the bottom, I thought I'd post a quotation that comes near the end which I think ties into Jeff's post from yesterday:

"When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don't. God wants both conversations to be true."

Authenticity.

What to do when loving your neighbor looks suspiciously like hating them.

2010-05-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Charleston I had a desk job. It was boring. To pass the time, I would email with other friends who also had desk jobs, and were also spending all day in front of a computer screen. Among other topics, we had a semi-theologically oriented list serve where about 15 of us could discuss semi-theologically oriented questions during the day. We called it the Question of the Day.

Most of our semi-theological topics on the email list were centered around how Christians could most profitably interact with the culture around us. I think that is the Apostle Paul had been a part of our list serve discussions (he wasn't, except indirectly), I think he would had advocated an approach based on speaking the truth in love.

Unfortunately, that was not always my approach. And while I have only myself to blame for that, I've come to see that my entire tradition has not always excelled at speaking the truth in love either. You see there are two parts to speaking the truth in love. There is the truth, and then there is the love.

We in the Presbyterian and reformed traditions would do well to recognize that we have not always included both parts. We love the truth, we delight in truth, we pursue truth at all costs, and we love when convenient.

I think that sometimes we conservative folks have gotten the idea that if we are speaking the truth, that it is by definition loving, regardless of how it is presented. We reason that if it is true that the truth will set you free, then speaking truth is a loving thing. However, I think the reason Paul admonishes us to speak the truth in love, is because there is such a thing as speaking the truth without love. We can use the truth as a bludgeoning device, to build ourselves up, by breaking others down. We can use the truth as a club to guilt or shame people into conforming to our standards. We can use the truth harshly when we are not really interested in investing our lives to redeem the brokenness around us.

When we do this, I think Paul would say that the truth we are speaking is not really the truth at all anymore, because it is no longer an accurate reflection of him who IS the truth. And he would say that it just goes to show how badly we really need Jesus. And it shows how far we have to go in learning how to speak the truth to a broken world while combining it with a self sacrificial love that truly desires the good of our neighbor.

Sometimes we (I) are guilty of using the truth as a guilt-inducing goad to drive people to repentance based on fear. But Paul says in Romans that it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. If our goal in speaking the truth to those around us is to display the lavish kindness of God, and his indescribable love for sinful people, then I think we will be speaking in love. Love for our neighbor, and love for our neighbor's creator. And I think we will be speaking the truth, because we will be reflecting the love of Christ, who is the truth.

Christians and Atheists - Some Common Ground

2010-04-30T05:05:00.002-04:00

What do Christians and atheists have in common?

Well, for starters, they have both been dubbed “atheists.”

It’s true. Back in the first century of the church’s life, Christians were considered “atheists” because they wouldn’t sacrifice to the gods of the Roman Empire. Incidentally, those gods are no longer with us except in history books so it was a good choice.

In an early Christian writing called The Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 160), for example, we read that the authorities tried to get the venerable old Polycarp to denounce his faith. They told him to say, “Away with the atheists!”

It may seem strange that “away with the atheists!” was a way of denouncing Christianity, but it was. Again, the Christians were viewed as atheists for refusing to bow to the gods of the day.

Now, I don’t get into conversations with many atheists these days. Meaning anti-theists. But when and if I do, perhaps this can be a source of common ground.

But a wonder whether we have common ground with the “atheistic” Christians of the first centuries. Polycarp and 11 others who were burned alive for their “atheism” in Rome. When we meet these 12 disciples, and a host of others, will we be able to look them in the eye and say, “We too denied the gods of our age.”

To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Will God accept me?

2010-04-26T21:35:00.000-04:00

Raise your hand if you've had a read-straight-through-the-Bible plan derailed around Exodus 25.

Who can blame you? You've diligently made it through the first 74 chapters of the bible, enjoying the delightful prose narrative, only to have your resolve mightily tested by seven straight chapters detailing (and I do mean detailing) the ins and outs of the tabernacle furniture. If you make it through to Exodus 32, you're rewarded with three more chapters of story, the easier-to-read, but kind of depressing Golden Calf incident. But just as you are picking up steam, Exodus plunges back into six final chapters describing the craftsmanship of Bezalel and Oholiab fashioning the tabernacle. It's a six chapter stretch that only, well, Bezalel and Oholiab's mother's would love.

Many thoughtful Bible readers have pondered why Exodus ends this way. Why are the tabernacle instructions given in such detail, only to be repeated in equal detail as the instructions are being carried out? And why are the two sections separated by the Golden Calf incident?

The first tabernacle episode, chapters 25-31, is still taking place at Mount Sinai. Moses is on the mountain, and he is receiving the instructions for the tabernacle straight from the Lord. The instructions are obviously detailed, and we can begin to get a picture of what everything looked like, and how it was laid out. (although interestingly, scholars who try to reconstruct the furniture from the descriptions are frustrated by the lack of completeness and detail!) The impression made on the reader is one of exactness. Even if we don't know all the significance, or the meanings of the details, we know that God has a very precise pattern in mind for the tabernacle, and it will be important for the Israelites to follow the pattern to the letter. God is a God of precision. He has high standards. And for the people for build a dwelling place for God, they must follow God's instructions exactly, or his presence in their midst will be jeopardized. The section ends with a repetition of the Sabbath law. Not only must the people work as God commands, but they must rest as he commands as well.

However. In contrast to the holy precision of God's instructions, Moses comes down the mountain to find the Israelites engaged in gross idolatry! This isn't the letter of the law, this isn't even close to the law! Moses breaks his tablets, he breaks the calf, and his anger burns hot. While he had been receiving instructions for the tabernacle (to be built mostly from gold), the people were busy putting their gold to another use.

The real tragedy here goes beyond the idolatry, the narrative makes us wonder whether Israel has forfeited its chance to have Yahweh dwell in their midst... Will God still live among them?

Thankfully, in chapter 34 God renews his covenant with the people, and in chapter 35 the craftsmen get to work fashioning the tabernacle. The repetition of material lets us know that they are obeying the instructions to the letter. God will still dwell in the midst of a sinful people, but his presence is mediated through the tabernacle, which must be built exactly according to his specifications.

What this says to me is that the prerequisite necessary for God to dwell with his people is not a perfect people, but a perfect mediator. God took the sanctity of his tabernacle very seriously. It was built according to his law, purified according to his law, and maintained according to his law. And this law was gracious, just as the tabernacle itself was a gracious gift, a way for a holy God to make his dwelling in the midst of a sinful people without the people being destroyed!

Should I Get Married?

2010-04-24T05:40:00.004-04:00

1 Corinthians is a masterpiece. Not surprising, since it's inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it really is an amazing piece of work.

What makes it so profound is the way that Paul applies the gospel, in a penetrating way, to everyday struggles inside (and outside) the church. Incidentally, I think this is the most important way to help people learn the gospel--by applying it concretely to everyday situations. And make sure that when you pour the concrete you use enough of it; concrete is usually measured by the bucket or the truckload, not in tablespoons or cups.

So anyway, in chapter 7, Paul answers the classic young adult's question, "Should I get married?"

Here's Paul's answer: "I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. ... Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that" (1 Corinthians 7:26-28). He then goes on to explain that even if you do get married, you should see it as secondary to your eternal calling to know and proclaim Jesus Christ.

So he basically says: "Should you get married? No, not with everything going on right now. You can serve the Lord more effectively in this evil world by being single. But if you must be married, go ahead, you're free to do what you need to do. But remember, I warned you."

The typical response by an American evangelical like me is to frantically race to defend marriage and, more specifically, our Christian subculture's near idolatry of it. We want to take the teeth out of this passage. But we shouldn't.

If Paul were a counselor, he would answer the question "Should I get married?" with probing questions like these:

"What is your motivation?"

"You do realize you're complete in Christ, don't you?"

"You do realize that marriage is only for this life, right?"

"Is your goal to serve Jesus Christ? Do you see yourself as a missionary in this world? How do you see marriage fitting into this framework?"

"Are you making this decision with a lot of self-awareness, and with humility? Do you realize that marriage shows your desperate need for help and not your advanced degree of godliness?"

"You aren't planning to settle down are you? Because that's a sin." (See vv.29-31.)

I'm not sure Paul would get many referrals for his counseling services. However, he would rest at night knowing that he mixed a lot of gospel that day, filled up the truck, laid a firm foundatin with it, and had some left over to patch up the cracks and crevices. (This is my overly clever way of saying that he didn't hold back.)

Then, if the young man or woman did choose marriage he could launch into his Ephesians 5:21-32 speech. Which basically says to the happily married couple: "What I told you earlier still applies. It's all about Jesus."

The Bible has a high and lofty view of marriage. But it's secondary to its high view of Jesus. We never want to think that marriage is a final destination when in reality it is only preparing us for the "marriage supper of the Lamb."

Living with Freaks

2010-04-21T20:49:00.002-04:00

I’m not always up on the latest trends. I was surprised last week when I saw that the word “Eyjafjallajökull” was “trending” on Yahoo! I later learned this was the name of the volcano (which I had heard about, by the way) and then it made sense.

Some time ago a word that began trending in Christian circles was “community.” And not one to miss out on trends, I’ve been hearing a lot about it lately.

I’ve been reading Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, which was a big hit in 2003. He has a chapter called “Community: Living with Freaks.” That is a fantastic description of Christian community.

It also fits well with a sermon I heard recently in which Mark Driscoll spoke about Jesus forming a team of disciples. He mentioned that Jesus put the tax collector on the zealot on the same team, and his sound byte was that Jesus forms "weird teams." I.e., if God is at work in your church, you should find yourself surrounded by people who aren’t like you. He made the insightful comment that if everyone is just like you, there’s affinity but not necessarily community; whereas community is meaningful precisely because of the different personalities, backgrounds, etc. Or as Don Miller would say, community is about living with freaks.

Speaking of sermons, we just began a sermon series on Philippians at our church. Jeff Elliott (not Moose Jeff but Different Jeff) was telling me, in preparation for this series, that Philippians showcases (among other things) partnership in ministry. And if you look through Philippians, you find that this is indeed a very significant theme—or rather, an assumption. You just don’t find many people going solo in the Scriptures. Paul had his Barnabas, his Silas, his Luke, his Timothy. He wrote letters to churches, or to pastors about their churches. Jesus gathered disciples—twelve of them.

Which circles back around to our trendy Blue Like Jazz book. Miller has a great line in there… drat, I left the book at the office. Well, anyway, he says that when he browses the Christian bookstores he sees a lot of books written to individuals about the Christian life. He sees very few written to churches. (For the record, his didn’t break the trend either.) And yet, the Christian life can only be lived with others. And specifically, with freaks.

I prayed last night that God would help our church love more people who aren’t like us. And I prayed that when God sends this opportunity we won’t miss it.

Why I'm pretty sure God would want me to have a leaf-blower.

2010-04-16T06:34:00.001-04:00

I own a rake. It has a wooden handle, and a plastic rakey part. It cost about $12 at Walmart, and as far as leaf removal devices go, its about as Luddite as they come. Which would be fine, except that I have trees in my yard. Lots of big trees that produce a healthy leaf crop every year, which makes raking operations a pretty serious business.

I have a hate/like relationship with my rake. Most of the time I hate it. Raking is hard work, and the wooden handle gives me blisters. And on select fall afternoons when I'm sitting by my office window, watching my neighbors blow away their leaves with the greatest of ease, (plus the one neighbor who has a riding leaf sucker!) then I really despise my sad little Walmart rake.

But there is a part of me that also likes my rake, and in a strange way is proud to own the rake. You see, raking is hard, and it takes time, giving me ample opportunity to feel a sinful pride over my rake wielding ways, and look down my nose at my leaf blowing neighbors. I begin to rejoice in the fact that I am not afraid of a little hard work, unlike my neighbors with their fancy leaf blowers (most pitiably the riding-leaf-sucker neighbor two doors down). I exult in my own thriftiness, having had the wisdom and foresight not to spend lavishly on unnecessary frivolities.

It's easy to see what is happening here. I like my rake because I like the opportunity to feel a little self-righteous. I like to feel like I earned my clean yard by the sweat of my brow and I deserve the glory for it. My leaf blowing neighbors are simply cheating, cranking up a gasoline powered engine for ten minutes is nothing of which to be proud. This is just the way my heart works. You'd think that having a more powerful, more costly, more efficient leaf blower would be cause for pride, and having to make do with a rake a cause for humility. But no, I find a way to take pride in using the cheaper, harder, more mundane option.

This is why legalism is so sickeningly attractive and the gospel remains so offensive. The prospect of having to garner favor with God by my behavior sounds to most rational minds like a pretty tough row to hoe. Especially if you know anything about the holiness of the one true God, and the height of his standards! And yet our hearts continue to incline toward this route, because if we can impress God with our obedience and earn it by the sweat of our brow, then we will have something to be proud of. We will be able to glory in ourselves, and look down our noses at those around us who haven't been so successful as ourselves.

The message of the gospel is that we can stop breaking our backs and blistering our hands trying to earn God's favor through our diligent labor. His favor is ours as a gift, all of the work has already been done by someone else, the spotlessly clean yard is ours, and we never had to lift a finger. It stings my pride, but let's face it, this option is better by far. Christ has done what we could never do. He has actually accomplished the feat, he has won the favor of the Father, not only for himself, but for all who are in him by faith. And all the glory goes to Jesus.

Clouds

2010-04-14T15:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was flying above the clouds, on a one-way trip to Baltimore. From there, I took a variety of trains in an attempt to get to Philadelphia. Leaving Baltimore, from the window of the train, I saw miles of buildings with broken windows and broken walls. Some were old factories, some were old homes. And after that, suburbs and bridges and towns.

At first, in the plane, I was wrapped up in my thoughts and in some anguished prayers, but mostly just wrapped up in myself. When I opened my eyes, I noticed all those clouds outside the window. Some were shooting up in the distance like mountains. Directly below the airplane, the clouds were like mist—you knew you would fall right through. But just beyond the wings, the clouds appeared formed, firm, and stable.

As I looked out at the clouds, I saw how they stretched on as far as my eyes could see. And in a minor moment of spiritual realization, I thought about the verse that says God has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west. And it had greater meaning to me, I think, because I was lifted so high above the cares of the world below me.

It was nice to enjoy the clouds, because I had recently gone through a period of time in which I had stopped enjoying the clouds. Fifteen to twenty years ago, I used to make a yearly flight across the country from San Diego to Michigan. And I remember one flight in which I planned to do some reading but all I could do was stare at the beautiful scenery out the window—mountains and canyons and clouds. It was a memorable time of silent praise to God for His handiwork. But then, over this past year, I realized that I could get into a plane and sit there and barely enjoy the scenery; I was too concerned about the cares of life.

I had thought that the days of enjoying clouds were past. I was too old and nothing was new anymore. But instead, I found myself silently worshiping God again this morning from Southwest Flight 0760 from Norfolk to Baltimore. And I’m so grateful that God can make us young again.

Easter: For Daily Use

2010-04-13T13:45:00.003-04:00

First of all, a little personal boast: My wife gave birth to our son two weeks ago, and in my objective, unbiased opinion, he's the cutest thing yet created. Check him out on our personal blog.

As it turns out giving birth can be a painful ordeal. So between that, and our dog losing a fight with the neighbor dog last week, a small corner of our kitchen counter has been taken over by prescription medications. To be honest, I get a little nervous around prescription medications. I suppose it comes from a childhood full of brainwashing with the "say no to drugs" campaign. But these drugs, even though they're the good kind, are still pretty powerful stuff, and I don't want to mess anything up. They have such detailed instructions: Take with food, Do not take with food, Take with water, Do not take with grape juice, etc. I tend to read over the labels many times, just to make sure I'm doing it right. The most common instruction on prescription meds is to not stop taking your medicine until you run out.

Last week I applied some Easter to my life. It's pretty powerful stuff too, and I applied it not a moment too soon. Because some of you may not be up to date on the instructions for applying Easter, let me catch you up...

Easter for Yearly Use: it may play second fiddle to Christmas in the modern imagination, but for Christians Easter is the best holiday of the year. During the week leading up to Easter, together with its attendant holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, we have the opportunity to go through the whole range of emotions. We celebrate Jesus' kingship in his ironic donkey ride into the city. We let him teach us, wash us, and serve us, for if he does not, we have no part in him. We feel the agony and see the humility on Good Friday, wait in eager expectation, and celebrate cosmic victory on Sunday morning. This is reality, this is life, this is the best thing in the world, as we renew the hope to which we are called.

Easter for Weekly Use: once a year is not nearly often enough to celebrate (and apply) Easter. So we do it weekly. The reason the first Christians gathered for worship on Sunday, rather than on the Sabbath like the rest of Judaism, was because Jesus the messiah had been raised from the dead on a Sunday. They worshiped in the morning because that is when the tomb had been found to be empty. So every Sunday is in fact a commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Easter is the first day of the week, the beginning of the new creation. Every Sunday we are reminded that in Jesus God is renewing the world, in Jesus God has begun his final redemption of his creation. Our Sunday morning worship is an outpost of the new creation, God's redeemed humanity, a community of life formed by the resurrection of Jesus, meeting in the midst of the old world which is passing away.

Easter for Daily Use: truly though, in order for Christians to stay totally healthy, Easter must be applied daily. Easter is the message that Jesus was put to death for our trespasses, and raised for our justification. I admit that my day-to-day conscious identity focuses mainly on my identity as a person, what I do, how I look, how I relate to people, how many people like me, etc. Left untreated, this is a condition that can easily lead to despair. Instead, my identity should be formed by who I am in Christ. Apply a generous dose of Easter thusly: God demonstrates his love for me in this, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. I am loved by God. Jesus came and lived a perfect life on my behalf, died a substitutionary death for me, and was raised to life victoriously. By faith I am united to Christ, and so my identity is as a saint, loved by God, having the righteousness of Christ, enjoying eternal life, fellowship with God, and all of my sins are forgiven. That is who I am. Who are you?

The most important thing is that you keep applying the healthful salve every day until you run out (never). Let Easter do its healing work...

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." -Psalm 32:1

Laying Down the Law

2010-04-10T08:00:00.002-04:00

My son has a communication problem, even though he’s not a teenager yet. We have to work hard with him in a couple areas: first, in getting him to initiate communication, and second, helping him practice putting sounds together.

One day, he wanted something that I had purposely placed out of his reach. He reached for it, but I wanted him to practice his speech. “Say book,” I required. Had he simply said, “buh-kuh” that would have been fine.

Now, I like to model my parenting style after God’s. That’s ambitious, but we are called to it. We use the Bible to learn how God treats us and try to help our children learn about God the Father through, say, Ken the Father. (Poor little guy.)

So as I was insisting that he say “book” in order to get a book, I reflected on my relationship to God. His love is unconditional, right? As Christians, we delight in the fact that we are saved by grace and not by law, right? So why do I have to set up these law-systems for my son?

The answer is that the goal of the law (that is, of saying “buh-kuh” to get his book) is not to get my son to prove his mettle. He’s not in a real good position for that anyway. The point of saying “buh-kuh” is so that he can ultimately communicate with me, and have an even better relationship with me. And not only me, but his mom, the other great people in his life, and even God.

So the goal of the “buh-kuh” law is relationship.

And this was God’s goal with the Old Testament law as well. He taught His people through routines and rituals to understand some basic principles they were going to need to know. How could they understand God’s relationship with them without profoundly understanding sin, sacrifice, forgiveness, holiness, and all the other things the law demonstrated? They needed to learn to speak the language.

Yet once His people were full grown, they no longer needed to persist in the routine—just like some day my son won’t need to say “buh-kuh” to get the book. He can just take it, bring it to me, and ask me to read to him.

“Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15).

Hot Dogs and Preaching

2010-04-07T07:02:00.000-04:00

Recently Aubrey and I met some friends at a bar in nearby Abbeville for dinner. It's not a place that we are accustomed to frequenting, but it has pool tables and hot dogs, two things I don't complain about.

We settled in, got a couple games of eight ball going, and ordered our hot dogs from the bar. They came with onions, mustard and the option for chili. When the dogs came out a certain member of our party asked for ketchup. The humble proprietor responded gently, but with conviction, that in 32 years of running his bar he had never served ketchup, and he certainly didn't intend to start now. Although I myself was not the ketchup requester, I was more than a little caught off guard by the concept of a hot dog dive that didn't carry ketchup.

I will admit to having mixed feelings about chefs whose stern "my-way-or-the-highway" ethos is allowed to dictate what the customers eat. We are the paying customers, after all, and I feel deeply that the final buck of condiment authority should stop with us. If I want a tomato based sauce on my processed meat product, so be it.

But I can also respect a chef like this. He knows hot dogs, he loves hot dogs, he lives hot dogs. He is a connoisseur of the perfect dog. He is convinced deep in his heart that the best dog is a ketchup-less dog, and he's not about to let you come into his shop only to have a sub-par hot dog experience.

Pastoring a church is a little bit like running a hot dog bar with pool tables. One of our main duties as a pastor is to serve the people. Every week we bring a message from God's word, and present it for the people. And like the snobby hot dog chef, we must also eschew the "customer-is-always-right" mentality. Paul says as much in 2 Timothy 4:3. Our calling is to be a connoisseur of the word of God. To know it, to love it, to live it. And to be able to present it to our people as the wonderful, gracious, life-giving, soul-reviving, wisdom-imparting thing that it is.

More than this, sometimes the calling of pastor requires a little holy meddling, a little sanctified butting in. As the novice hot dogger will willingly, but unwittingly, degrade his dog with improper condiment selection, so we sinful people are all want to mix our holy living with sinful practices. It is the calling of the pastor to develop a taste for pure holiness, and to come back week after week, to extol the wonders of Christlikeness, and to announce gently, but with conviction, that no, you may not have a side of idolatry with your sanctification. Want a scoop of adultery with your Old Testament meditation? Not in my shop. I happen to know that such things will totally ruin Christian living and the enjoyment of higher pleasures, such as God. You think you would like them, but trust me, they don't go.

Bible Reading Plans: Quantity Time with God

2010-04-06T07:08:00.003-04:00

I decided long ago that I wasn't a Bible Reading Plan Guy. Most plans have you march through about 4 chapters per day, in order to read the entire Bible in a year. I think reading the entire Bible in a year is a wonderful goal, yet personally... I like to slow down a bit.

When I was a young man and young Christian, I would sometimes spend hours each morning in prayerful reading of God's word. Yet even then, I think I only made it through a couple chapters each day. It doesn't take long to read 3 or 4 chapters, but it does take a long time to ponder them. When God says that we grow not through simply reading the Bible but through meditating on it, I take this to mean that we need to read slowly--and take notes, too.

Another reason I kept away from reading plans is because I like the flexibility of choosing which book (or section of the Bible) to study on a roughly month to month basis.

However...

I think the time has come for a change. The pendulum has swung. I'm somewhat satisfied with the quality of my time in God's word, but not satisfied with my progress through the different sections of Scripture. I want to read through the entire Bible in this coming year.

So yesterday I test drove a reading plan. It was a nice model, especially given that I'm starting this in April rather than January. This one picks up at the beginning of Mark, 1 Corinthians, and Joshua in April - so I'm not landing in the middle of those books. It also picks up at Psalm 72, and it just so happens I read through the first 71 psalms this year already.

It looked like a winner. But you know... I'm not so sure. It was very distracting to try to read 8 verses of Mark, 17 verses of 1 Corinthians, 2 chapters of Joshua, and then a psalm to boot. What am I going to sink my teeth into?

So, great. That lasted one whole day.

So now I'm thinking this way. Most plans are roughly four chapters per day. And if you do that, you can have 5 catch-up days per month and still read all 1189 chapters of the Bible within a year. So I might just choose which 100 chapters to read each month, and just keep ticking off which books of the Bible I've read until I finish up next March. So for example, this month I could read Job (42 chapters), Mark (16), Philippians (4), and 38 more psalms. We're teaching in Job, and preaching on Philippians, so that's the reason for those two choices.

It will be interesting to see which is the last book standing next March...

If I get that far!

(Hope I do, though.)

A Brief History of Good Friday

2010-04-02T06:40:00.000-04:00

Good Friday is the Friday before Easter, commemmorating Jesus' death on the cross. If you're going to have just a few days marked on your Christian calendar, you definitely need Christmas (Incarnation/Birth), Good Friday (Atonement/death), and Easter (Resurrection). You should probably add Pentecost, remembering the giving of the Holy Spirit--not like a gift once given that we have some old pictures of, but more like the celebration of our wedding day which inaugurated a relationship we still enjoy to this day. We are still waiting on the exact date of Jesus' return, otherwise that would probably be the next most important.

Or, you can be like Charles Spurgeon (I think it was him) who had two days marked--"Today and that day." Or Luther, who intended to live "like Jesus was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is returning tomorrow."

Back to Good Friday. When I was growing up, Good Friday was a big huge deal. Services were always at noon, since this is when Jesus died. Of course, this was no problem since obviously people were off work and stores would close at least for the noon hour. I remember one year there were multiple services in the afternoon that corresponded to Jesus' seven words from the cross.

When I moved to San Diego as a young adult, I attended a megachurch that also had a Good Friday service at noon. It was held outdoors, in Balboa Park, and was very evangelistic. The cross was preached, it was just sunnier than the inside of the Lutehran church (and the music was less somber).

When I began attending Reformed churches in San Diego, I found that they did something very unusual. They had a Good Frida service in the evening. That was odd. But I was still able to find noontime services... I drove up the coast one time to a relatively evangelical PC(USA) church who knew the proper starting time.

A few moves later, and I'm in Virginia Beach. And I've been surprised because more than one Reformed church, including my own, have a tradition of celebrating Maundy Thursday instead (not that it's an either/or). And some churches have neither!

It's very strange...

But I will say this. I'm hearing the cross preached and Christ exalted on a weekly basis, probably more than any other time in my life. By God's grace I'm understanding the cross more deeply. And that is, after all, what makes Good Friday good.

"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)

Job and Jesus: Have You Considered the Book of Job?

2010-03-31T08:14:00.003-04:00

As you may know, the book of Job begins with terrible calamities befalling Job: the loss of ten children, destruction of his property, and then he is struck with a terrible disease. And it all begins with a discussion between Satan and God.

One thing that stood out to me in our discussion last week was the fact that it is God who brings up Job's name first. In speaking to Satan in chapter 1, He asks, "Have you considered my servant Job?"

God is, so to speak, boasting in His servant Job. He calls him an upright man. Oh, wouldn't we want God to cherish such thoughts of us?

Then again... maybe not. After all, it is the fact that God prizes Job so much that he is put to such an extreme test. It reminds me of Jesus' words--"The last will be first and the first last." Those God prizes might very well be those in our midst whose faith is being refined in the fire. Yet we might have it all backwards, thinking that God most prizes those who are influential and successful and healthy.

One final thought: Jesus was God's only begotten, and beloved, Son. And yet He suffered more than any other man ever suffered--under the weight of our sin.

[Note: I also posted this on my church's blog since we're going through the book of Job. But I'd like to post several reflections here regarding this amazing part of Scripture also.]

Call to Worship

2010-03-27T06:16:00.003-04:00

My pastor friend Jeff (not Moose Jeff) recently was explaining to me his view of the "Call to Worship" in our church service. Perhaps your church has a call to worship--or, perhaps, a more informal reading of Scripture near the beginning of the service.

The idea behind the traditional "Call to Worship" is that we be reminded that God Himself calls us to worship; we are responding to Him. He initiates, we respond.

So I was thinking this morning, as I was not feeling all that devotional during my devotional time, that perhaps I could a daily call to worship. Something to rouse me from my spiritual malaise that sometimes settles over me. Perhaps a friend could call me at about 6am each morning and loudly proclaim one of the following passages...or maybe I could just read them myself and remember that it's the voice of God in Scripture telling me to...

"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4)

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!" (Psalm 150:6)

"Remember, repent, and do the first works again." (Revelation 2:5)

Just a thought. Okay, time to worship and pray.

Why I'm Not Worked Up About Health Care

2010-03-26T07:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, I might be going out on a limb here. I believe in, and vote for, limited government. I believe the health care legislation is very significant... Yet why am I not all worked up about it?

I was reflecting on this and came up with these reasons.

1. There is very little I can do about it. I spent the late 90’s being worked up about political matters that I could do nothing about. I feel I’ve paid my dues in that area. Now, I’d rather be worked up about things that I can do something about.

2. I think it’s symptomatic. It’s not like this legislation dropped out of the sky into an otherwise peaceful, harmonious country. It’s the result of political, bureaucratic, and social tugs-of-war that have been going on for quite some time and will continue for the foreseeable future.

3. The Lord is exalted far above all gods (Psalm 97:9), and that includes politicians. We have turned politics into an idol, thinking that we can be saved through a political party or movement—and it has been disproven every election cycle.

4. The Lord is at work! I’m really excited about the grace God is granting in many corners of the country through bold preaching, movements of fasting and prayer, and sacrificial living. I’m not sure very much of this has been covered by either Fox News or CNN.

5. Maybe there’s some good stuff in the bill. Look, I wasn’t “for” the bill—especially since it was prosecuted in such a non-democratic manner. But it’s not like the alternative to the bill (status quo) is very good. Unfortunately, we are all screwed up—insurance companies, drug companies, political parties, it’s all a mess.

6. I really believe that Jesus was not a Republican or a Democrat. He always had a “third way” answer to each quandary posed to him, and I think he would surprise us if he were here today. What do you think his answer would be to the question, “What do you think about this health care legislation?”

7. There seem to be very few godly, humble, sacrificial leaders in our nation. And this is what we need! I can get really excited about Christian business people, doctors (I know a few), lawyers (I know a bunch), and politicians living out their calling. To a small degree, I can even “do” something about this—as a pastor, I have a role in the education of some of these. That’s humbling, yet exciting. So I see that there are some Christians who should get worked up and take godly action, but it seems I have other things to get worked up about.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying this issue is not worthy of reflection, for as Christians we should cultivate wisdom even concerning matters beyond our everyday reach. And, I understand that I'll be directly affected by this legislation since we heavily utilize the health care system (since we have a child with special needs). I'm just saying that I'm not eating and breathing this issue-- my passions are not parallel with the news cycle.

I want to see our country move in a godly direction, led by Christians in every vocation (including law, medicine, politics). But for most Christians, it seems that our primary calling is as humble disciple-makers and sacrificial servants within our families, churches, and communities. And that primary calling should be our primary care.

Am I missing something?

Test Your Tabernacle Knowledge!

2010-03-24T10:54:00.003-04:00

I've been studying the instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle lately. And it's been awesome! Too often it's easy to get bogged down in passages such as these (Ex. 25-31). We tend to consider them "boring," "irrelevant" or "too old-testamenty." Well let me tell you, there is nothing boring about this stuff. Consider the following. Did you know these things?

1. Exodus 25-31 is a speech from God. The phrase "And the Lord said to Moses" is repeated seven times. The seventh time is a reiteration of the sabbath commandment. Hmm, interesting. Seven separate speech acts by God for the creation of a thing. What previous biblical event does this remind us of?

2. The Spirit of God is only mentioned a couple of times in the Pentateuch (gen-deut). Two of the most notable are in Genesis 1:2 and Exodus 31:3 when the Spirit of God is given to Bezalel to empower him for making the tabernacle. Is this a significant connection?

3. When God had finished his creation of the world, he looked at it, saw that it was good, and blessed it. In Ex. 39, when the tabernacle is finished, Moses looks at it, sees that it is according the the Lord's instructions, and blesses the people.

4. The entrance to the garden of Eden was on the east side. The tabernacle was always to be set up facing east. Coincidence?

These features of the "boring" tabernacle story, tell us what the tabernacle is, a sort of "new creation." Because of man's sin, and his banishment from the garden of Eden, he no longer has access to the presence of God. But now God, who has just redeemed his people from slavery, is taking it upon himself to give the instructions for a "new creation," a place in the midst of the people where God will dwell. The tabernacle is a sort of "portable paradise" which will move with the people throughout their travels in the dessert.

Of course, when God moves into the tabernacle in Ex. 40, the glory of the Lord is overwhelming, such that Moses can not bear to be in his presence. A dilemma. So it's no surprise that Leviticus opens with seven chapters detailing the sacrificial system that will make it possible for a sinful people to dwell with God.

Bonus: If Ex. 25-31 present the instructions for the tabernacle as a "new creation" echoing Genesis 1-2, what does this tell us about golden calf incident in Ex. 32-34?

Preaching the Gospel in a Roundabout Way

2010-03-22T16:40:00.003-04:00

In Reformed circles we often speak of “preaching the gospel to ourselves.” This means that we revisit and apply the gospel to our lives daily (or for really big sinners, even more often). Older generations would say that we remember the promises of God.

This has been a helpful concept to me, because over the years I’ve come to increasingly appreciate the power of the gospel—it’s not just for unbelievers anymore! Everyone needs its sustenance, and no one outgrows their need for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yet as we learn to apply the gospel to every area of need, we should realize that there is more to the gospel than meets the eye.

For example, there is a past, present, and future dimensions to the gospel.

Past: God’s love displayed in his choosing us for salvation, Jesus’ accomplishment of our salvation through his life, death, and resurrection, and the Holy Spirit’s application of this to our lives. Our story, our “testimony.” God showing up in our lives. Calling these truths to mind is life-giving, energizing, and humbling to boot.

Present: God is with us! Many time in Scripture (Joshua 1, Hebrews 13) we are reminded that God will never leave us or forsake us. God’s presence with us is a huge encouragement and we need to be reminded of this each day too. It also gives us the confidence we need to live out our faith each day, whether in killing sin or speaking grace.

Future: God promises to always be with us, and paints very colorful pictures of eternity for those who are interested. There really is another world that awaits, this life is not all there is, and because of what Jesus has done we will have a bountiful inheritance. We need this hope to get up in the morning, especially when dreams and health fail.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the center of history and the focus of the gospel. Every blessing flows out of our union with our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet when we “preach the gospel to ourselves” (and to one another) we should look around: There are past, present, and future aspects to the gospel. The gospel surrounds us.

All I'm sayin' is let's preach the gospel and let's use all three tenses.

A Tactical Blunder

2010-03-19T09:29:00.003-04:00

If, as a pastor of a little church, my goal had been for our church to maintain the status quo, for us not to be challenged, changed, or churned up, I would have to admit to making a serious tactical error: I decided to preach through Ephesians.

Ephesians has been very challenging for us as a church. In Ephesians Paul says that because of the work of Christ on the cross the church should pursue purity and unity. Let me say that a different way... the church should pursue purity AND unity. Or to rephrase, the church should pursue purity and UNITY. Hmm. As you can see I'm still trying to figure out how to get the stress just right. But the point is that the church should pursue unity! And purity! And they should pursue both together!

Many churches in my tradition are good at pursuing purity. Moral purity, doctrinal purity, even aesthetic purity. You name the purity, we seek it. And we tend to look ever so slightly down our noses at those who have not attained to our level of doctrinal purity. In some circles, unity is even viewed as the first step down the slippery slope towards liberalism (gasp!).

Some churches love to emphasize unity. As we're learning in Ephesians, this is a good, biblical, necessary emphasis. But in the worst cases (not all cases) unity is achieved by lowering the standards of what we are united around, and purity goes out the window.

These impulses almost seem contradictory. Certainly, most of us don't naturally tend towards seeking both at once. And yet, this is what Paul is challenging us as a church to do. To settle for nothing less than a robust, Christ-centered Unity of believers, and a humble, Christ-focused purity of life.

How will we achieve this? It won't come all at once, I don't believe we are going to wake up one morning and find that God has all of a sudden granted perfection to the church (but I won't argue if this does happen!). I believe it is going to have to come from a grass roots movement. Each individual person doing their part, seeking to live "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2)

Why would someone do this?

2010-03-17T11:29:00.002-04:00

"When I survey the wondrous cross,
on which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count as loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride."

Anytime I have a moment of reflection, and I meditate on the sins in my own life, I realize again that most of my sins springs out of my pride. It is the Ur-sin. It is my desire to be the master of my own ship, the king of my castle. And yet in one sense, the essence of the gospel is humility. The gospel is about humbling ourselves before our Lord, admitting our sin and need of free undeserved salvation.

Pride is a nasty sin. It is deeply entrenched in many of us, and one of the most difficult to dislodge. And yet Isaac Watts, in the hymn quoted above says that he is able to pour contempt on all his pride! What a wonderful thing to be able to do. And so I ask, what would make a man do this?

Sight and contemplation of (and faith in) the cross of Christ is the only thing that is able to move someone to pour contempt on their pride. When I consider the loving-kindness of my heavenly Father, the depth of mercy, the kindness of his love, the long-suffering of his patience, the gift of his son as a sacrifice for sin... this stirs the heart.

Sometimes the simple truths are the most profound. Long-term obedience to the Biblical command for humility (and others too) cannot be sustained through repeating the commandments to myself. Nor will guilt trips change my heart. The fear of impending judgment will not produce lasting effects. Only when my heart is changed, to love God, because of his great love for me shown in the cross, only then will I be able to truly pour contempt on my pride.

We will always do what we love. Always. So long as we love ourselves and our sin most highly, we will nurture them. When we love God most, we will delight to walk with him. We will delight to follow him, to trust and obey him. We will be irked by the sinful remains of pride, and their deleterious effects on our life. And that will be a good thing.

Bad Things, Good People

2010-03-16T06:19:00.003-04:00

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Have you ever been asked this question? This is a common question that... Well, I was going to say that this is a common question that skeptics ask, but it's actually a common question that people ask.

I used to think that the best answer to this question--certainly the hardiest, most theologically courageous--was, "There are no good people! Accordingly, the better question is, why do good things happen to bad people?"

This answer draws on the biblically accurate teaching that "all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God," "there is none righteous, no, not one," and each person comes into the world stained with sin and is hence a "child of [God's] wrath." It's biblical.

Sorta.

You see, there is a problem--a biblical problem--with answering the question this way. The problem is in the book of Job, at the very beginning, where it says:

"There was a man in the land of a Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil."

So this means that even if bad things do not happen to "good" people, bad things do happen to "blameless, upright, God-fearing people who turn away from evil." For as we know, Job suffered calamities that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

What are we to make of this?

The book of Job tackles the issue of suffering at a profound level. It addresses the severe, sustained suffering of a man who loved and obeyed God. Job is not presented as perfect, not even at the beginning of the book: he made sacrifices for sin, in accordance with God's Old Testament instruction. But if Job went to our church, I venture to say we might refer to him as "a good guy."

Yes, bad things happen to good people. Truly good men may be 1 in 1,000,000 but they are out there - and bad things happen to them, too.

If your answer to the question "why do bad things happen to good people" is anything like mine, maybe it's time to replace it with something more profound, more compassionate, and more Christian.

Following a Train. (of thought)

2010-03-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

In Ephesians 3:19 Paul is praying for the struggling little church at Ephesus, and he rounds out his prayer by praying that the Ephesians may be filled with all the fullness of God. It's an ambitious, and tricky little phrase, that most likely means "be filled with the same thing which fills God." Holiness. Perfection. Paul is praying that they become perfect.

I told you it was ambitious. But no more so than Jesus saying to his disciples, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt 5:48) Or the many places in scripture where God says "Be holy as I am holy." (Lev. 19:2; 1 Peter 1:16)

But what is even more astounding is the means that Paul mentions for attaining this goal. The way to be filled with the fullness of God is by knowing how much God loves you. It's true. Paul prays that you "may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

The proper end result of knowing the love of Christ is obedience. Christlikeness. Holiness. Can it really be this simple? The mysterious key to growing in my faith is simply to know how much God loves me?

What does this mean for me? It means that in my devotional time, my goal is to impress myself with the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. As a minister trying to motivate people, my great task is to show the love of God (not to use guilt, fear or shame). It means doing whatever I can to communicate this one simple truth: God loves you.

When I know how much God loves me, it stirs my heart to love God. And when I love God, I delight to walk with him.

And with few exceptions, the way the New Testament shows us the love of God is by pointing to the cross.

Romans 5:8 - "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son."

1 John 4:10 - "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

If I follow Paul's train of thought correctly, he's saying that knowing the gospel is the one and only key to Christian obedience. This is huge.

Praise That Won't Sit Still

2010-03-11T06:19:00.002-05:00

A while back I grew weary of my limited praise vocabulary. I seem to have a rather limitless vocabulary for petition, but not for adoration and thanksgiving. I found I was leaning too heavily on cliché’s as I attempted to offer God the worship He’s due; clearly He’s due more than a few stock phrases.

So I decided to look for words in Scripture that I could use as my own. I did not want to get in trouble for plagiarism, but I figured that if I could really make these words my own it would be okay.

In particular, I was looking for words of praise in the second person so that “I” could praise “You.” Here is one passage I found, wrote down on a 3x5 card, and tried to memorize for the purpose of praise:

“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.” (Nehemiah 9:6)

Another passage I didn’t plagiarize was from the Psalms. Not surprising, right? It’s the book of prayers and praise, after all… but it led me to realize something quite interesting about biblical praise.

Well, first of all, here’s the passage:

“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!” (Psalm 84:10-12)

And here’s what I realized: The praise recorded in the psalms rarely sits still. Did you realize, for example, that in the passage above the psalmist first speaks to God…then to himself…then to everyone else…and then to God again!

To God: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”
To himself: “I would rather be a doorkeeper…”
To everyone: “For the Lord God is a sun and shield…”
To God: “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!”

This is what I have found repeatedly. The praise recorded in the psalms keeps moving in all different directions. (Take a fresh look at the familiar Psalms 3, 23, or 118 for example.)

So here’s what I gather from all this:

1. Praise is inescapably corporate, and we should be ever mindful of the larger body of believers even as we worship God “privately.” Remember, Jesus taught us to pray to “Our Father.”

2. We need to speak to ourselves even as we speak to God. We need steady, conscious reminders of God’s truth and promises while we worship.

3. The reverse is also true: we need ongoing infusions of worship as we learn God’s truth and promises. If you study too long without prayer and praise, you’re probably not learning as much as you think.

4. This explains why I’m not so good at following prayer patterns like “ACTS” (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). These are good training wheels but eventually we need something more like “ACATASAA.” And for those who believe in lament, “LACATASLAA.”

Those are just initial thoughts. I’d be interested in yours… especially since I realize I’m not alone in this!

Hebrew Mnemonic #6: Ken is the Door.

2010-03-10T07:02:00.000-05:00

One of Ken and my favorite games in seminary was "name that tune." We played it whenever the opportunity arose, often driving somewhere in the car with the radio on, or hanging out eating tostada nachos at TGI Fridays. You got one point for knowing the name of the song, one for knowing the artist, and the most elusive third point was awarded for knowing the year the album was released. Other than that, the scoring was pretty informal.

The games were never close. If the classic rock station was on, Ken would blow me away. If the 90's or top 40 station was on, it was all me. Somehow the games were still fun, even though our musical tastes overlapped only minimally. Ken liked old music, and introduced me to such lesser known bands as The Beatles, The Who, and some song about a kid who played pinball.

Because of this, I considered Ken to be my door to a different generation. This was also helpful in remembering that the Hebrew word dor means 'generation.'

The word dor is important in the OT because God is presented as the God of generations.

Genesis 17:7 - "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you."

Because the OT is a story that takes places over 1500 years (or so), it makes sense that God was not simply calling individuals to a static faith, rather he was creating a people. He started with one man, Abram, and promised to be his God, and the God of his family through the generations.

This became part of the standard confession of faith in the OT:

Exodus 34:6,7 - “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

It was also a standard feature in Israel's praise:

Psalm 100:5 - "For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."

Israel found great comfort in the fact that their God was (is) a God of generations. Not only was he there for them, but he would be there for their children and their grandchildren. He is still here for us today, and we know that he is the God of all eternity. His love endures forever.

Most Encouraging Conversation Contest

2010-03-08T21:05:00.003-05:00

Today I sat across the table at Starbucks from Melvin, a staff pastor at a nearby church. The two of us are from different ethnic backgrounds, we are in different stages of life, and we serve different churches with different emphases within different denominations. Different Christian traditions, even. He referenced people and conferences and ministries I’d never heard of, and he’s unfamiliar with those in my circles as well. I don’t think he’s even heard of Tim Keller or Jeff Tell.

And we talked about uniting the churches in our community around prayer, worship, and intercession.

Man, it was great…

Every Tuesday night we open our house up for prayer, and we call this “House of Prayer.” Before and after, we talk—but 7:30-8:30 is for prayer. I guide the prayer time, but do so very lightly—it is my desire that the Holy Spirit will guide our thoughts, hearts, and prayers in the direction He knows we need to go. I refer to this as “the best hour of the week.”

Back to Melvin. While I’m enjoying this hour a week of prayer, his church has established about 20 different prayer meetings. Many of them are in two hour blocks, combining worship and prayer. And his desire is to see numerous congregations unite, forming a “House of Prayer” that will keep worship and intercession ascending 24/7 in our community—patterned after what’s been done in Kansas City.

I wanted to get some guidance for a “Day of Prayer and Fasting” we are attempting later this month, but somehow this discussion of of 24/7 prayer—and the parenthetical discussions of worship, outreach, younger people, our families, the work of God, and racial diversity—left only enough time remaining to pray for one another and for our wives.

What a great conversation. I should have told him about the time that I was driving up north when a large sign reading “HOUSE OF PRAYER” grabbed my attention. Then I saw a stop sign protruding from the snow, and wondered what it was doing in the middle of—wait a minute, there’s an intersection here!! I slammed on my brakes, slid on the ice into the intersection, and was spared by God from a serious accident.

That’s the most encouraging conversation I’ve had since…well, since last Tuesday night when we conversed with our Creator at “House of Prayer.”

Has anyone had a more encouraging conversation than that lately?

Christians are not Tomatoes.

2010-03-05T11:37:00.002-05:00

Two weeks ago I engaged in one of my favorite February rituals: The Annual Planting of the Tomato Seeds. I like to grow the tomatoes in my garden from seeds, its more interesting that way. So recently I filled two disposable aluminum casserole dishes with potting soil and stuck about 50 tomato seeds in them. I stuck them by the sunny window in my office and waited. And waited. And waited. I tried to get some other things done while I was waiting, but its hard. I just like to dream about the future, imagine the fresh pico de gallo, and the tomato basil bruschetta that awaits us this summer.

But during the first seven days nothing happens. At least it looks like nothing is happening. The seeds haven't germinated yet, or stuck their heads above the soil. It makes me anxious. What if none of them grow? I try to help. I talk to them, make sure they are properly watered, and left in a warm location. But what can I do, really? They're tomato seeds; they're so tiny. And I'm just a guy with a pan of dirt and some water.

It reminds me of church. As the pastor of our little church I have grandiose dreams. I like to dream about the day when our little church building will be filled up with people. I dream of revival hitting our town, seeing lost sinners come to Jesus, seeing luke-warm begin to burn with passion, and seeing the committed become even more active in their love for the Lord and mission to our community. I dream of seeing us as a holy church, people loving each other despite their sin, being patient, forgiving each other, reaching out, reaching in, sighing in prayer, worshiping with full hearts, growing in grace, etc. You get the picture. Normal things that every pastor would like to see for his church.

But at the same time I am painfully aware of my inability to bring this about. I'm just a guy. I can provide the dirt and the water (the gospel and the means of grace), but ultimately we wait for the Lord to give the growth. Only God can change a person's heart, can remove a cold heart of stone and give a true heart of flesh. Only God can break a hardened sinner, so that he desires repentance and forgiveness. We are at the Lord's mercy, and we wait for him.

The growth of tomatoes, mysterious though it is to me, is still a natural phenomenon. I can be relatively sure that if I put a tomato seed in some moist soil at the right temperature, that it will grow. It's natural. But the conversion of sinners is a supernatural act. The preaching of the gospel does not work automatically. It works when the Holy Spirit of God accompanies it with his power. We scatter seeds, and wait to see if God gives growth.

Thinking about this drives me to my knees. I regularly set goals that I can't accomplish in my own power. So I pray. Praying for the Lord to break hearts, to let the light of the gospel shine clearly, to seek out and to save those who are lost.

It's humbling to know that you are powerless to accomplish your primary career objectives! But it's good to know that God is able to do far more abundantly that all I ask or think! This really isn't my career objective. This is the Lord's work, He is the one building His kingdom. It's a privilege for me to have a part to play. I am responsible to fulfill my calling, and to leave to God to do his part. And to rest in the knowledge that even if my dreams for our church seem impossible to me, they are small dreams when compared to what the Lord has planned!

God's Call or Role Playing?

2010-03-03T11:27:00.004-05:00

The idea of “calling” is profound: God Himself, the maker of the universe, made us and calls us to exercise particular gifts and talents to His glory. Someone who loves teaching, and is good at it, should teach. Someone who loves building things, and is good at it (compare yourself to me and you’ll be fine), should build.

Yet what does it mean—honestly now—to do these things to God’s glory?

Consider Romans 12:6-8: Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

We often need to often ramp things up a notch: Don’t just contribute, do it generously. Don’t just lead, do it with zeal. Don’t just show mercy, do it cheerfully.

I think that the way we know we are really living out our calling to God’s glory is if we are using our gifts in a way that is not routine, but infused with the joy of the Lord and (dare I say) a sense of mission.

If I’m working a job that seems to match my gifts, but feel little zeal for the task, then I may be performing a function but am I living out a calling? If I’m serving in the church but it’s rather routine and unchallenging, I may have found a niche—but have I found my calling? If I am using my gifts in a way that helps me escape having to share my faith, or take a stand for my faith, how can I say I'm using these gifts to God’s glory?

What I am absolutely not saying is that we should climb the ladder to the highest rung of outward success. For example, I am not saying that the person with musical gifts should give up their gig at the mission or the nursing home so that they can perform on a more suitable (i.e., bigger) stage.

In fact, I am saying the exact opposite: that to use our gifts for God’s glory should lead us on a downward path of more humble, more challenging, more sacrificial service. It’s what leads construction workers to build homes for the needy. It’s what leads some academics, lawyers, and politicians to align with Christian causes that shut them out of the halls of power. It’s what led Paul to Macedonia and Jesus to the cross.

Oops, did I say the cross?

Well—I myself am no example of outstanding sacrifice. But I do pray that I will not confuse having a role with finding a calling. I pray that I will not simply use my gifts mechanistically, but zealously and joyfully. I pray that God will use my gifts to make contact with lost, lonely, and dying people who need the gospel. I pray that I won’t get too comfortable. I pray that I’ll honor Jesus by faithfully living out my calling, not by role playing.

Contentment

2010-03-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

Overheard in New Jersey, three or four years ago...

A young twentysomething was home visiting her parents. She said of her roommate, "She claims to be a Christian, but I'm not sure because she's not very content."

I have never heard contentment given such a place of honor, except by the Apostle Paul. This young woman was saying that contentment is such a sign of God's grace, of understanding and believing the gospel, that if you don't have it...you probably have never really met God.

If I ever have a daughter who grows up to be a twentysomething, I hope she says things like that. Hope my son does too.

Olympics Vs. Church

2010-03-01T10:08:00.004-05:00

First of all, I should admit that Aubrey and I are total Olympic junkies. We love them. In fact, in July 2008, after four years of not having TV, Aubrey and I finally got cable TV so we could watch the Summer Games. Now this week our evenings are going to feel strangely empty after two straight weeks of watching every Olympic event possible.

I love the competition, I love seeing exotic small market sports get their 15 minutes of fame, and naturally I love watching the wild wipe-outs. But one thing I don't like is the overly emotional drama inserted by the commentators. Granted, the competitions themselves are indeed quite dramatic, and the excitement of representing your country must be quite a thrill. So I let the competitive drama slide. The worst part by far is in the opening and closing ceremonies.

The bookend ceremonies inevitably contain an over-abundance of talking heads opining on the worth, the value, and the significance of the Olympics. They bring people together. They transcend national identities. Or as John Furlong put it, "As the Olympic cauldron is lit, the unique magic of the Olympic Games will be released upon us. Magic so rare that it cannot be controlled by borders. The kind of magic that invades the human heart touching people of all cultures and beliefs. Magic that calls for the best that human beings have to offer."

Bleah. Besides being overly sappy, its also seriously misguided. Such Olympic rhetoric borders on idolatrous. The Games are portrayed as the one final hope of humanity, the one thing that can bring us all together despite our cultural differences. The one thing that above all else displays the wisdom and glory of all mankind.

Unfortunately for the Olympics, the position of "one final hope of humanity" has already been filled, and we are no longer taking applicants.

Moreover, in Ephesians, Paul describes the church in a nearly unbelievable way. His train of thought goes like this: the mystery of the gospel is that through Christ both Jews and Gentiles (the nations) have peace with God and are one body; his calling is to preach to the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ; (here's the important part) SO THAT through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph. 3:10)

God is at work bringing together all of humanity into one body, not through sport, but through the proclamation of the gospel of Christ. And the church, with its diversity of membership (people from every nation, tongue, tribe, etc.) is a sign to the entire universe, showing of the manifold wisdom of God.

The 'rulers and authorities in the heavenly places' are the evil spiritual beings (fallen angels, demons). And God is showing off the magnitude of his divine wisdom in front of them. How? Through the Church!! (I'm not making this up, read Eph. 3:10)

The Church is far more significant than the Olympics!

The Olympics happen once every four years as a sign of our general desire for international harmony (to say nothing of our complete inability to achieve it). The church gathers every week, as a sign to the entire universe that God has already made peace, man with God, and so man with his neighbor. As people from every nation come together every week in the midst of our differences, sin, prejudice and general disagreeableness, we worship One God, through One Savior, in One Body, holding to One faith and One hope.

This is good news. This is the manifold wisdom of God. This, indeed, is the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Read This Last

2010-02-27T07:01:00.003-05:00

After you've done all your other web stuff, come back and read this quote from John Piper. Because after you read it, there's a pretty good chance it will be time to turn off the computer and talk to God.

See you soon.

Okay...

Here we go:

"One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time." - John Piper

O my God! (in you I trust)

2010-02-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

This morning I was pondering Psalm 25:2 which says, "O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me."

On the one hand, this is a humble prayer of petition from a heart that loved God and trusted in his protection. I seek to have a similarly humble heart, to exercise similar faith, and for God not to let me be put to shame. In fact, the entire Psalm is both a wonderful song of praise and a sneak peak at a godly man's conversation with his Lord.

On the other hand, I can never get past any verse that says "O my God" without getting distracted and suddenly wondering if I've just broken the 3rd commandment. It's even worse when I have to read this verse out loud to others, whether in a small group bible study, or as a call to worship. As much as I try to enunciate as piously as possible, I still feel dirty. David, of course, is not taking the Lord's name (or title) in vain. He's not using the phrase as an interjection, or declaration of surprise. He's actually addressing a heartfelt statement to his God.

So today I did a little research. In the ESV, the phrase "O my God" appears 22 times. Mostly in the Psalms, but also in the prayers of Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel (Notice that it appears in the prayers of the most Godly men in scripture, apparently the problem is just with me!).

So I did a little more research. The Hebrew for this phrase is only one word, meaning "my God." There is no corresponding particle "O" in the Hebrew. The English versions have added the "O" to help convey the directness with which the prayer is addressed to God. This is good news for me. I now feel that as long as I am aware that the verse in question is a prayer to the Lord, I am free to drop the "O." It's funny how such a small change can make such a big difference. "My God" sounds humble and dependent, I like it.

My wife says it's just me. It is just me?

The Religious Symbolism of "The Office"

2010-02-24T06:06:00.004-05:00

I recently discovered this little show called The Office which airs…well, almost around the clock in reruns. It apparently has a pretty loyal following. Which is reminiscent of another TV show that is popular these days, Lost.

Unlike Lost, however, The Office is rich in religious symbolism. Whereas Lost is about being lost, which is slang for not possessing faith, The Office is bursting with Biblical metaphor.

For example, the show revolves around the creation ordinances: work, rest, relationships, marriage, and family. All this is part of God’s created order, as we see in Genesis 1 and 2. For those who believe humor is a creation ordinance, there’s plenty of that too.

Not to point out the obvious, but those in the “office” sell paper. Get it? The paper clearly represents the written word, a nod to the Protestant Reformation and the mass production of Bibles in the language of the people.

Thus The Office is a metaphor for American evangelicalism. The leader of the “office” is a guy who wears a suit, much like your average evangelical pastor. The “employees” have diverse gifts and backgrounds, as 1 Corinthians 12 describes. They are supposed to work together (see Ephesians 4), but of course this is a challenge as it is in any church—oops, I mean “office.”

And the reason they have such strained relationships, as the Bible tells us, is the Fall. This goes back to the creation account once again, in which sin entered the world and made our relationships a mess. Even as believers, we struggle with our relationships to one another and even to God. And as The Office so profoundly illustrates, we even make the distribution of God’s word merely a means to make a buck. Yes, we do need a new Reformation! Thank you, Office, for this clarion call.

It’s exciting that a show of such striking religious commentary made it onto the air.

Guidance as Big as God

2010-02-23T07:09:00.003-05:00

“This is God, our God forever and ever,
He will guide us forever.” (Psalm 48:14)

This phrase caught my attention because, like many Christians I know, I’m pretty interested in God’s guidance. How often have you asked others, or been asked, to pray for “God’s guidance”?

Praying for God’s guidance is a big deal. We want to do the right thing, we want to feel like someone is in charge of the apparent chaos of life, and (perhaps more than anything else) we would really like things to work out well for us.

I think there are a few ideas in Psalm 48 that take God’s guidance to the next level, however.

First of all, God’s guidance is guaranteed: “This is our God, He will guide.” It’s not something we get if we are good, or pray hard enough, but it comes free. It’s the reason we pray with David, “The Lord is my shepherd.” (In fact, the Septuagint translates the second part of this verse, “He will shepherd us forever.”)

Also, God’s guidance is corporate: “This is God, our God.” If you ponder the entire Psalm, it’s a psalm about God being a mighty fortress to His people, plural—to faithful Israel, and by extension to His church. This shouldn’t make us feel as if we’re lost in a crowd, but it should encourage us that we are part of something bigger. God does provide guidance to us as individuals and families, but we’re part of something larger than our own lives.

And beyond all this, God’s guidance is staggering in its magnitude. “He will guide us forever.” This is amazing! We tend to think of God’s guidance—or at least I do—as an isolated event. And usually limited to a particular decision. But actually, God is working on a grand scale—on an eternal scale. You would think based on this that perhaps all things are working together for our good.

Incidentally, the ESV translation I’ve cited is following the Septuagint here, whereas most translate this along the lines of “He will guide us unto death.” It’s reminiscent of Psalm 73:24, “You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.” Or Psalm 23 again, “The Lord is my Shepherd…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” God does not drop us off at death’s door and says goodbye, but He guides us in such a way that death is traversed and we enter into glory. And you know, God keeps on guiding us even then!

This is our God and guide. Pretty amazing stuff.

Even Paul digressed occasionally...

2010-02-22T09:45:00.004-05:00

Particularly in Ephesians 3:1-13, which is, technically, a digression.

He starts the chapter saying "For this reason, I Paul...." but then he gets sidetracked recounting parts of his testimony and the way God had worked in his own life, calling him to be the apostle to The Nations. He doesn't resume the initial thought until verse 14 when he starts again, "For this reason I bow my knee before the Father."

This is what I think happened...

Paul had just finished writing chapter two, a thoughtfully crafted chapter about the effects of the gospel. The gospel takes us from dead in our sins to alive in Christ, from hostility and alienation to peace and fellow citizenship in the kingdom of God. His mind is entranced with the glory of God and the wonder of the grace that is ours in Christ. Now, he's getting ready to pray for the Ephesians. As an opening to his prayer he casually mentions his name and title as the one who is getting ready to intercede in prayer, "I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles."

But as his mind was already saturated with the new-creation-power of the gospel, his name caught in his mind, and caused him to remember how the gospel had worked in his life. He was, after all, one of the greatest examples of the gospel breaking down hostility and replacing it with gospel zeal.

He used to be Saul, now Paul.
He used to imprison those who loved Christ, now he is a prisoner of Christ himself.
He used to hate the Gentiles, now he loved them enough to suffer on their behalf so that some might come to Christ.

The wonderfully intricate theology of chapter two is not meant so that we can simply become intellectually informed. It is written so that we might worship, so that we might love Christ more. Paul moves from considering theology in the abstract, to marveling about how it had personally affected him, how he had been changed by the love of Christ, and how the power of the gospel had overcome even his own considerable hostilities.

What's your testimony? Have you worshiped God for the life changing power of the Holy Spirit working in your life? Have you taken time to digress from the routine details of life, and your routine prayers, to think personally about the life changing grace of God who loves you?

How to love the Sovereignty of God

2010-02-18T05:00:00.001-05:00

Believing in God's sovereignty means believing that God is in complete control. That in his most holy, wise and powerful way he is preserving and governing ALL his creatures, and ALL their actions.

Most of the time, God's providence is mysterious. God is certainly under no compulsion to tell us why he is doing things the way he is. But occasionally we are able to look back and see just one or two of the possible reasons why God did things a certain way. And when we can, it is very encouraging. Most of the time, when bad things happen we simply have to trust the God has our good in mind, even though we can only see bad.

I bring this up, because when Ken and I were in NC two weeks ago, Ken pointed out that I had several stories of being able to look back and see good in what had originally been very difficult circumstances. I need to remind myself of these things during the other 99% of the time when God's providence remains mysterious.

Two stories are similar. Both in Charleston in '05 and in Greenwood in '07 I applied for pastoral jobs which I thought would be perfect fits for me. I was excited about both of them, and thought I had a good chance at being hired for each of them. I was wrong about both of them. And both times, especially the first time, I was extremely disappointed not to get the job. However, it is also true that I now look back at each job and am very thankful that I didn't get them. Both jobs would have been bad fits for me. And in both cases the person who did get the job became a good friend.

I'm thankful to be able to look back on these situations, and realize that although at the time I saw God's providence as only bleak, I can now see what he was protecting me from. And I'm particularly thankful that I now have a job that I love, even though I never saw it coming!

A few concrete examples from my own life can go a long ways in encouraging me when only bad things seem to be happening. I know that someday I'll be able to look back and see the good that God had in mind. It might happen in a few years, or more likely, not until heaven. But either way I am encouraged to love the doctrine of God's sovereign providence, not only in theory, but also in practice.

WADDLE!

2010-02-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been having devotions with my 2 year old son. We use this book:

He really likes the book, and with it can easily coax out of him the "w" sound. I can also tickle him at the end when the "alligator's gonna getcha!" and that's important too. Since he likes the book so much, I'm hoping that I can use it to get him to put two sounds together--perhaps he'll say "wad" soon--or maybe say a whole word.

All this is a far cry from teaching him to say, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." But it's definitely a starting point.

Sometimes Christians debate whether we should "waste time" with people's physical needs, such as providing food for medical care, or whether our job is simply to focus on the "spiritual" needs--give them the gospel that saves their soul.

But when I'm with my son, it all seems very simple. If he's going to learn to praise God, he's going to need "w" and all the other letters of the alphabet too. He's going to need to put two syllables together. And come to think of it, providing food and medical care is fairly fundamental as well.

So I wonder, as we think about those around us who need the gospel: what other, fundamental needs must be addressed in their lives if they are to understand and praise God? And what kind of discernment and patience should we exercise if we are to truly do as Jesus said and "love our neighbor as ourselves"?

Why I love the Church

2010-02-16T07:02:00.002-05:00

The best thing by far about the church, is that God dwells there.

There are many other excellent things about the church, but this surpasses them all. Ephesians 2:22 says "In [Christ] you (plural) also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

The God who revealed himself to his people as Yahweh.
The One who was, and who is, and who is to come. God Almighty.
God who is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
Whose Spirit hovered over the waters in creation, and spoke the universe into being by the word of his power.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span.
Before whom the nations are as a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales.
The One who is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!

This God dwells with his church. When we gather for worship on Sunday mornings it is not primarily a gathering of believers one with another, but before all else it is a gathering of the Triune God with his people. God speaks to us. We listen, we worship, we are changed.

God dwelt in the Mosaic Tabernacle...

Exodus 40:34-35 - Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

God dwelt in the Solomonic Temple...

I Kings 8:10-11 - And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

God now dwells in his people...

Acts 2:2-4 - And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Do you not know that God's Spirit dwells in you?

I love being a part of the church.

Holding Pattern

2010-02-12T16:21:00.003-05:00

There is a famous moment from Seinfeld in which Jerry is frustrated with a car rental representative. He made a reservation, but the car wasn’t there for him.

Jerry: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?

Agent: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.

Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the
reservation.

Agent: I know why we have reservations.

Jerry: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to
take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation and
that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody
can just take them.

Recently when reading the psalms I was thinking about this episode (stranger things have happened). In Psalm 40:1, David says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.”

David had to wait for the Lord. All of us go through times when we have to do the same.

So I was thinking, it’s often easy to shoot up a prayer to God. Sometimes these are broad prayers like "Lord, help me to love you more!" Sometimes they are more specific. But how often do we really hold on to that prayer in our heart, remaining in a prayerful frame of mind as we wait on him to answer?

Perhaps the most important part of prayer isn’t saying the prayer but holding on after we pray.

Just a thought.

Saving the Planet

2010-02-09T09:56:00.004-05:00

“It’s easy to sleep at night when you’re saving the planet.”

That slogan was posted prominently in my hotel bathroom, accompanied by a word or two about reusing towels. I’m reminded of a woman who encouraged Americans to use “one less paper towel each day”—since it all adds up. But what is my daily allotment of paper towels, anyway?

I am all for being good stewards of what God has given us. I think Hummers are overkill. I believe black smoke billowing from trucks or factories cannot be God’s endgame, and that being wasteful is sinful.

But I must take issue with this idea that it’s easy to sleep at night when you’re saving the planet.
First of all, in all the great movies, those who are saving the planet get very little sleep. They are usually forced to work overtime to save the planet. And a lot of the saving tends to unfold at night-time.

Second, Jesus actually did save the planet—and he didn’t sleep well the night before. Do you remember Gethsemane? He sweat great drops of blood, praying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me—but not my will, but yours be done.”

And third, those who are trying to the save the planet these days—if they really mean business—are constantly worried about everything! My source for left-leaning news, Slate.com, is frequently asking questions like these:

“Which fruits, vegetables, and other crops have the smallest environmental footprints?”
“How bad should I feel about taking hot showers?”
“Is it a sin to leave your cell phone plugged in overnight?”

And more!

This is what the Bible means when it speaks about living by the law. We can never do enough. If we try to save ourselves (or, by extension, our own planet), one of two things will happen: we will either try really hard and land in despair, or we will not try very hard at all but still give ourselves a huge pat on the back for “saving the planet.”

My advice: Realize that you are not the savior. Trust Jesus as the Savior. And then, as you live for him, try to keep the place relatively clean.

How to Avoid Spiritual Arbitration

2010-02-08T05:33:00.002-05:00

I'm a big baseball fan. It's really the only sport that I love following. But winter is the off-season for baseball. Which means there's not much baseball news worth reading about these days. There's some, but not much.

The off-season baseball news revolves around contract signings. Those players who are free agents are renegotiating their contracts, and trying to get more money. Contract talks are all about determining how much a player is worth. And they determine a players worth by looking over his statistics from the past few years. What is his batting average? How many hits did he get? How many errors did he commit? By looking carefully at how a player has performed, they determine what that player is worth.

Sometimes we act as though we believe that God treats us the same way, determining our worth based on our performance. "I just know its going to be a bad day, because I didn't have a quiet time this morning." "The reason I didn't have success is because I didn't pray hard enough." "My co-worker doesn't deserve my kindness because they have no respect for ______."

But in God's eyes our performance does not determine our worth. He does not love us more when we do good (how could he? the Bible says our best works are like filthy rags!). And he does not love us less when we do bad.

For he himself is our peace - Ephesians 2:14

God is at peace with us. We are at peace with him. Not because of our performance, but through Christ. Because Christ paid the penalty of our sins on the cross, he made peace. God welcomes us just like he welcomes Christ. My worth is determined by Christ's performance.

When we live based on our performance there is no peace. We are all judge and no friend. We are all negotiation and no acceptance. All demand and no grace.

But when we live out of grace, accepting the free gift of peace based on Christ's bloody cross, we have peace with God, and peace with one another. We stop judging others. We start loving. We stop standing aloof from God, and begin to draw nigh.

God is not up in heaven scouring our stats to determine how to act towards us. He loves us based on the work of Christ alone, with no eye towards our miserable stats. And one effect of the gospel is that we no longer scour other's stats to determine how to treat them. As one of my elder's used to say, "the ground is level at the foot of the cross."

Advance the Church

2010-02-05T06:52:00.002-05:00

Great to see Jeff at yesterday’s Advance the Church regional conference. We heard several solid messages. Here’s the main thought, or most memorable point for me, from each speaker:

Matt Boswell, speaking on worship. Our ecclesiology is our true theology. In other words, what we really believe is reflected in how we structure the church and its worship. Also, as a worship leader, he “sided with pastors” that preaching is the most important element of worship.

Tyler Jones, speaking on "Living the Mission." Are we seeing an exodus from churches because pastors are willing to “lead” the mission but not actually live it? He posed some excellent questions for pastors, here are the top two: “Have you architected your life so it’s impossible to be on mission?” And, “Do you fail to share Jesus with lost people because of pride?” That is, because you secretly believe that as a pastor you’ve already done your job?

J.D. Greear, speaking on "Keeping the Gospel at the Heart of Mission." Church ministries are like cars that naturally veer hard to one side—unless we keep our hand tightly on the wheel, programs and ministries will become ends in themselves and not means to communicate the gospel and make disciples. Jesus’ signs were temporary—the eyes Jesus opened went blind again in death, those He raised from the dead eventually died. Our “signs” (displays of love w/in our communities) are temporary also—therefore, they must always be accompanied by clarity concerning the gospel message.

David Platt, on the Great Commission. We are tempted to do everything but what Jesus said in Matthew 28, namely, make disciples. Building a church is easy: have a great performance, a place, programs, and professionals to keep it all running. You can grow a church…while still forsaking the command to make disciples.

Bottom line: It was not a good day for church programs. They were rebuked for their pride, removed from center stage, and asked to sit quietly in the back row.

Church Transplanting

2010-02-04T09:16:00.004-05:00

Haven't seen Jeff in over two years. But we've met up in Durham, NC for a pastor's conference. Many who will be there are church planters, replanters, and revitalizers, so I thought it appropriate that USA Today's cover story this morning was about church replanting.

Or, as Jeff called it, transplanting.

There's a move afoot to physically relocate a 100 year old basilica from Buffalo, New York to Georgia. It will take a lot of time and energy, and a whole lot of money. I encourage you to read the story because it reveals how different people think about the church. Is it a building? Is it a piece of architecture? I love old church buildings... but the church is something so much more incredible.

Our greatest concern is not church planting, but about transplanting the gospel into people's hearts. It's something only the Holy Spirit can do, but it's a joy to be involved on the fringes.

Even though the Spirit does the hard work (and provides the money as necessary, too!), getting caught up in His activity does sometimes feel like ... well, work. Perhaps we forget this. Perhaps it surprises us that serving Jesus is sometimes tiring. But remember that Paul said, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though not I, but the grace of God that is with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Fortunately, as that verse also indicates, it is never lonely work. Not ultimately, anyway... Not if it's done by the power of the Spirit.

Holy Spirit, work in me, that I may work.

The Challenge of Preaching about Honey

2010-02-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

The challenge of course, is that words are simply inadequate to capture honey. They can not convey the experience of tasting honey. The only way to truly know honey, is by tasting. As Jonathan Edwards says:

There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.

By my carefully chosen words, artfully crafted stories, and precisely accurate descriptions, I might convince you to believe honey is sweet. I might even begin to convey something of the experience of eating honey. But until you take a that first intoxicating bite, you will have no familiarity with the unique joy that is honey, nor knowledge of its exact flavor.

God is both simpler and more complex than honey.

One the one hand, God is infinitely more complex. (that's probably an understatement!) A few tastings might be sufficient to let us feel we have a taste for honey. But a lifetime of acquaintance with God will only serve as a prelude to begin to know him as he is.

But on the other hand, we might also say that God is simpler. Or we might at least say that we have more resources at hand. God has revealed himself to us in such a way that we might know who he is.

But the challenge remains. Can I preach in such a way that people will not only learn about God, and even believe in him, but feel in their gut the comfort of his sovereignty; taste the sweetness of his holiness; the joy of his goodness; feel awe at his infinity; be humbled by his mercy; feel loved by his love; fear his majesty; delight in his grace; be confounded by his providence yet submit to his wisdom with peace and confidence?

Because God is a person (though not a human), knowledge of him will always be experiential, and complex. In comparison, preaching seems so mundane, so one-dimensional. When I first read the Edwards quote above, I despaired of preaching, as though preaching could only convey knowledge not experience. And yet God has ordained the spoken, preached word as one means by which he makes himself known to his people. Preaching is not limited to conveying merely an abstract sense, which must then be ratified by concrete experience. God is able to convey himself through preaching. Preaching can indeed impart a "new sense on the heart."

To know honey, you need a bear-shaped bottle of goodness, and a spoon. To know God you need the scriptures, able to make you wise unto salvation, able to let you taste and see that the Lord is good.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Four Reasons I like the Prodigal God

2010-02-01T07:02:00.001-05:00

Well I finally finished Keller's Prodigal God. And like the rest of the world, I liked it. To be honest, I've got a bit of a contrarian streak, so I considered writing about the things I didn't like in the book. But, to be honest again, I really really liked the book, and I'd rather rave about the good features than try to be really picky and find something bad. So here we go, the things I liked about Prodigal God.

1. Keller doesn't preach to the choir. I find that many popular books and blogs spend a lot of time saying things that their audience already agrees with. Its easy for conservative authors to rail against homosexuality or abortion, just to name two examples, because we conservatives all hate those things. But not Keller. Knowing that his book will likely be read mainly by conservatives, Keller goes after the conservative sins of spiritual pride and self-righteousness. Keller takes us all down a few notches. And yet somehow, every conservative person I know who's read the book has loved it! This speaks highly of Keller's pastoral skill.

2. I liked it because I'm one of those self-righteous conservatives who needed to hear Keller's pastoral, Biblical, loving, straight forward, rebuke. Beyond simply calling conservatives proud, which would have been true, Keller insightfully exposes some of the more subtle ways that we "elder-brother" types rely on our own spiritual accomplishments for our standing with God, rather than relying on the righteousness of Christ.

3. Keller demonstrates both explicitly in his teaching, and implicitly in his message, how to apply the gospel to heal a sinful heart. In other words, having diagnosed our condition, he applies the remedy. And the remedy is not trying harder, or knowing better, but knowing and relying on the grace of Christ in the gospel.

4. Keller is a skillful writer and a polished communicator. What I really need is the truth, and Keller makes the truth both accessible and inviting. This particularly stood out to me late in the book when he notes that his main point had been made two centuries earlier by Kierkegaard, in a comparison of the 'aesthetic' and the 'ethical.' I can only imagine that a book discussing Kierkegaard's conception of the aesthetic and the ethical would fly off the shelves like a nice cold cup o' plague. But Keller pleasingly drew me in, taught me, and let me go before I ever even suspected I was being served reheated Kierkegaard. Well played, Keller.

Global Christian First

2010-01-30T10:38:00.002-05:00

I am a global Christian first and a PCA minister second.

By this I mean that I am…

1. Excited by the worldwide spread of the gospel historically. I love studying history because I love studying the spread of the gospel from the time of Jesus to the present day. This includes the spread of the gospel through missionaries, monks, and theologians; through those we might label “Roman Catholic” or “Eastern Orthodox” or (more recently) “Pentecostal”; through reformers and revivalists; from high church to horseback.

2. Excited by the worldwide spread of the gospel presently. I love hearing about the underground church in China, Brazilian churches in New Jersey, Korean missionaries going into Muslim countries, and the Africans welcoming the Americans.

3. Humble concerning my own tradition, respectful of other Christian traditions. What I've written above could not be possible unless this were also true. I wouldn’t be “Reformed” or “Protestant” or “Presbyterian” if I didn’t believe those labels pointed toward biblical faithfulness. I think Reformed theology best summarizes the biblical teaching concerning God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, and I believe that being “protestant” means returning the church to its biblical foundations. Yet I respect the histories and the strengths of other traditions. My Christology owes a great debt to those we now label “Eastern Orthodox” and “Roman Catholic.” And I owe a huge personal debt to Pentecostals who prayed for my salvation and charismatic evangelicals who led me to Jesus.

4. Ever called to guard the trust. Let me add an important note, which is that my joy concerning the global spread of the gospel is tempered by concern for that which is spiritually dangerous or unhealthy. We pastors are called to be defenders of God’s truth, and in particular the biblical gospel, and the more this gets distorted the less we rejoice and the more we warn. The gospel can get distorted by extrabiblical tradition, extrabiblical “revelation,” legalism, greed, perversion, or cold intellectualism within the church. So when I speak about the joy of seeing God work in all different geographical and theological corners of the globe, I’m referring to his work in magnifying Himself through the salvation and Lordship of Jesus Christ. You can't be a global Christian without believing the Christian means something precious!

Some applications.

1. I think a person misses out on great deal of joy if they do not recognize the blessing of Jesus Christ among believers who think, act, or worship differently. And this happens to all of us, to some degree, whether we are Reformed, charismatic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Orthodox, or Catholic.

2. I like to read widely. I will tend to read plenty of books (and blogs) by Reformed and/or evangelical people like myself, because this is my world. But I do not shun books or commentaries that come from a different angle and, in fact, welcome them to the degree that they help me see something in Scripture that I would otherwise fail to notice.

3. More important: I like to pray widely. I like to know what’s going on in other denominations, or other parts of the world, so that my heart can better resemble Jesus’s heart for His people. It's not always easy or natural, but I like to cultivate this habit.

4. Perhaps more important still: I like to befriend widely. I want friendships with believers of all sorts, for the purpose of prayer, mutual encouragement, and standing together for the gospel. Again, not always easy or natural, but important.

I suppose this all goes back to the earliest post I wrote for Moose: The Lord Thinks We’re Crazy!

What is means to be humble before the text.

2010-01-29T05:00:00.000-05:00

I've been learning recently that the doctrine of sola scriptura is easier said than done. Which is saying something, since I'm never really sure if I'm pronouncing those Latin phrases correctly or not. But as difficult as it is to say, its even tougher to do.

Sola Scriptura means that we hold the Bible as our ultimate authority in faith and in life. It means that we, as Christians, are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And it means that all of our beliefs should be based on scriptural teaching. That which we hear in church, we compare to the Bible to make sure it is true (Acts 17:11). When we read Christian books, theologians, or even when we sing songs, we judge their content by what is in the Word of God.

Things get a little sticky when we realize that this process often works in reverse as well. In other words, when our pastor explains a certain passage of scripture to us, we tend to believe him, and that becomes the way we understand the passage. Our theology often informs the way we read the Bible. And for the most part this is good. God ordained that there would be teachers and preachers in the church so they could do just this, teach us the Bible!

Here's where I'm going. One of my teachers was recently telling me how he came to a certain position he holds to. It is a very acceptable, yet minority position within the world of reformed theology. For years he had held to the majority position. But then he began to read a few key texts differently. For so many years he had read the text in one way, because that was how our theology told him to read the text. But it had made him miss several obvious features.

He told me how deeply humbling it was for him to realize that this could happen. He is a Bible scholar both by trade and by hobby. He immerses himself in the text, both in English and Hebrew. And yet the task of Biblical interpretation is such a deeply communal activity that we often follow the footsteps of those who have gone before, enjoying their insights, and often making the same mistakes.

Another teacher often said that he had to be much more careful in reading authors he trusted, because he was liable to let his guard down and follow them in both truth and error. Whereas when reading authors he was skeptical of, he already was on his guard, and eagerly testing everything by the scriptures.

If the Bereans were praised for testing the Apostle Paul by the Word of God, then how much more ought I to subject my reformed forefathers (as much as I love and trust them) to the scriptures. And when I read the scriptures, how much more do I need to pray for the Spirit of God to lead me into all truth.

Miller's Million Miles

2010-01-28T07:06:00.002-05:00

After reading Jeff’s post yesterday, I thought it was time to finally post a review of Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. After stumbling upon Bob Goff yesterday, I knew it was time.

First, a disclaimer: I have no horse in this race. I never read Miller’s popular Blue Like Jazz, never was disappointed by his subsequent books, never developed an opinion about his writing. I just happened to hear what this book was about and thought it sounded like good, light holiday reading. So around the New Year, I picked it up.

At first, I didn’t like it. I wanted to return it and get my money back, in fact. His writing style was just so…well, he was just trying too hard to be clever, and it bugged me.

But for some reason I kept reading. I liked it a little more, although I didn’t fully relate to the main character. The main character is, in fact, Donald Miller. He is fairly self-depreciating, and basically describes himself as a bum who’s not accomplishing anything. Although I’m often disappointed in myself, I’m not wasting a whole lot of time on movies and TV.

But for some reason, I kept reading. And I ended up liking it quite a bit. Basically, Miller realizes that he’s living a boring life and that he needs to do something challenging. Then, he realizes that challenging isn’t quite enough, you have to overcome some fears. Then, he realizes that you have to still go a step further and do something that is actually meaningful…helpful…sacrificial.

All of this is wrapped in the idea, kind of popular now, of looking at our life through the lens of story. (This is where Jeff’s blog comes in.) What we look for in a dramatic story is really what we want to see happen in our lives, if we’re willing to get out of our comfort zone: “A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.” Miller analyzes this in pieces: A character. Who wants something. Who overcomes conflict. To get it.

Here’s the opening of the book:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living these stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either. Here’s what I mean by that:

And so the story unfolds.

Actually, Miller doesn’t accomplish anything stunning over the year (or so) that he chronicles. But he sets out to do some things that are, for him, steps in the right direction. And I think that’s part of the enjoyment of the book: after the first few aggravating chapters, it’s actually pretty realistic. He doesn’t buy a Volvo, but he doesn’t save the planet either. He loses weight; he hikes; he bikes across the country. He faces some fears concerning his estranged father. He starts mentoring some other kids who don’t have dads.

So, by the way, yesterday a guy was standing in my church named Bob Goff. He was speaking to about 400 law students (and to me, I was in the back row). And I realized part way through his talk why I recognized his name: his family, and his story, is described by Donald Miller in a chapter called “Meeting Bob.” Hmm! So while Bob was talking about doing exciting things with one’s law career, I was thinking, “Time to write that blog.”

So if this sounds interesting at all, you’ll likely enjoy the book. It will make you pause and reflect the way light reading sometimes does. But if this doesn’t sound interesting, well, you probably haven’t even finished reading this post and you’re certainly not going to be tempted to buy the book anyway.

Through New Eyes

2010-01-27T07:02:00.000-05:00

When Aubrey and I began our blog way back in '06 I remember a funny thing happening. It didn't take long before I began to start seeing every part of life as being a potential blog post. I no longer lived life in a simple, happy-go-lucky, non-reflective sort of way. No, I began to filter my experiences through the lens of blogability.

The same thing happened after I signed up for facebook. Each experience, quip, or mishap, no matter how mundane prompted reflection: "Could this be turned into a clever status update?"

When Ken and I began blogging here at The Moose back in November, these silly reflections took a more serious turn. As I was putting more time into writing things of a more serious, edifying nature, I began to search my daily experiences for illustrative material. I began asking not simply, "Could this be turned into a blog post," but "Could this be used to illustrate a bible verse, hebrew word, or theological dynamic?"

Looking at our life through lenses is not bad. It's inevitable. We all do it. Sometimes its instructive to reflect on what lenses we filter our experiences through. Blogability? Facebookability? Tweetability? Other lenses are more serious. Vanity? (everything that happens is one more chapter in the amazing story of me!) Pessimism? (just a more depressing take on vanity) A Quest? (every experiences relates to my search for meaning in ______)

The Bible encourages us to wear certain interpretive lenses. Romans 8 teaches us about God's sovereignty, and encourages us to see our lives not as meaningless progressions of bloggable (or not) events, but as being guided by the hand of our loving Heavenly Father. Can I reflect on my daily events and appreciate that God is in control (even if I don't understand why things happened the way they did)? Can I learn to be thankful and even worshipful in the knowledge that God knows every sparrow that falls?

Other lenses influence the way we see the whole world. For instance, a Biblical lens sees all of history as broken up into periods of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. This lens helps us to understand an important cosmic trajectory. Likewise when we learn to see the world in theological categories. This world is fallen, stepped in sin, yet being redeemed. The church, which is the kingdom of God, is growing, and slowly but surely people are being redeemed, and rescued from the dominion of darkness.

Biblical lenses help us to make sense of the world, even when we don't see the ultimate purpose behind every event. They give us hope, give us meaning and give us direction. And they help us to see the significance of every experience, quip, and mishap, no matter how mundane.

Note: I like that last sentence, but let me be clear. Saying that biblical lenses can help us to see the significance of every experience most certainly does NOT mean that we will understand just exactly why God sees fit to order our lives or the world at large the way he does. However, good Biblical lenses will help us to know that though his providence is mysterious, He is in control. And sometimes that is enough.

Anxiety and Prayer

2010-01-26T13:18:00.003-05:00

One of the helpful points Paul Miller makes in A Praying Life is that we should monitor our anxieties to know how to pray.

He writes:

What does an unused prayer link look like? Anxiety. Instead of connecting with God, our spirits fly around like severed power lines, destroying everything they touch. Anxiety wants to be God but lacks God's wisdom, power, or knowledge.

This is simply what is said repeatedly in the Bible: anxieties are to be replaced with prayer (see Philippians 4:5-6 for example). But what I find helpful here is thinking of anxieties as "prayers left unprayed."

I think it's true. Instead of letting those prayers go unprayed, we need to take those cares and turn them into prayers, lest they destroy the whole neighborhood.

The Megchelsen Challenge

2010-01-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a twentysomething and new to the Reformed faith, my church in San Diego had an assistant pastor named Jim Megchelsen who was attending seminary at the time. He taught an adult Sunday School class on Zechariah. That’s a book in the Old Testament.

And he said something that has stuck with me to this day:

Jim claimed that 90% of our theological questions would be resolved if… now, that’s a very important “if”… if we understood precisely the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

In other words: If we could know precisely where there is continuity, and precisely where there is discontinuity, between the Old and New Testaments, we would resolve many of the thorny issues that divide believers today.

For example, we would have answers to the following questions:
* Should we baptize infants or not?
* Should we (only) sing psalms in worship? Should we pray imprecatory psalms?
* Should clergy be called “priests”? (I consider that a “gimme,” but a billion other people on the planet do not.)
* Should we seek to implement the Old Testament law in our nation? In our lives?
* Should we expect prophecy in the church today? What is the church?
* Should we honor the Sabbath? How? And what day is it on, by the way?

Not to mention that we would have a much better understanding of the Trinity, biblical prophecy (in the “end times” sense), and very personal questions such as “does God love me even when I don’t keep the rules?”

What do you think?

As for Jim Megchelsen, I looked him up online. He’s currently preaching from Colossians in the mornings and Numbers in the evenings. Nice.

Spiritual Guinea Pig

2010-01-23T06:27:00.003-05:00

Slate.com runs a series entitled Human Guinea Pig: Humiliating Myself for Fun and Profit. The writer, Emily Yoffe, has been a mime for a day, a drag king, even a golfer. Once she was a “standardized patient” for med students, the first patient 23 different medical students ever examined.

Sometimes I feel like the spiritual guinea pig. I’m currently working through a study with my wife and two other couples; among other things, we are often called upon to examine our “respectable sins” (as Jerry Bridges calls them). Attitudes of self-righteousness, efforts at control, approval gathering, and so forth. For some reason, I’m usually the one in the room on the operating table—the “standardized patient”—explaining how my lack of faith played itself out this week.

For example, last night I explained how I experienced the sinfulness of sin in Walmart. It had nothing to do with the people there—who apparently conspired to take up my time, get in my space, and hinder my progress. No, the real sinfulness was my complete lack of love, based ultimately on a lack of faith. Although as I explained to the group last night, I really did have to get some things.

Maybe I’m not always the one describing my bouts with selfishness and lovelessness. Maybe it just feels that I’m always the one, because our pride desires that we never be the one.

One thing I’ve been learning through my assignments as a spiritual guinea pig is this: we will hinder our own progress unless we have open relationships with others, and in particular the confession of our sins. As uncomfortable as it is to be honest about who we are when we are exposed by God’s word, it is far worse—and fruitless, in the Galatians 5 sense—to hide from others. Somehow, and I don’t have it all figured out yet, our relationship with God suffers as our relationships with others suffer—and vice versa.

“If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). This is the guinea pig’s motto.

Grace + Growth = Obedience

2010-01-22T07:00:00.002-05:00

I'm preparing a sermon this week on three very well known verses, Ephesians 2:8-10. Verses 8 and 9 in particular are quite well known, and are one of the classic statements of salvation by grace alone. We contribute nothing. Pure gift. Don't try to earn it. Your works don't save you. And yet I can't miss the fact that they are followed up by verse 10, telling us about the good works God desires us to do.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:8-10

As clear as Paul is about the fact that we can't obey our way into God's favor, he is just as clear about the fact that God's favor should now result in our obedience.

The classic dilemma for preachers approaching this text, or similar grace-centered texts, is to worry that if we make too big a deal out of grace, that people will start to think obedience doesn't matter. Perhaps, we may think, it's dangerous for us to emphasize grace too much, because people will stop caring about holiness. How do we tell people their obedience doesn't earn them favor with God, and still tell them to obey?

Bryan Chapell sums up the dilemma neatly, "It is difficult to say plainly that obedience does not qualify us for grace, without having some hear that obedience is no longer a requirement of God." Indeed.

Even Paul was not unaware of such distortions of the gospel of grace. In Romans 6 he deals with the exact issue. Some are claiming that since they are saved by grace, that they are then free to live any way that they please. "What then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!!"

Preaching grace means maintaining as Chapell says, that our good works do "not qualify us for grace." Indeed, by definition, grace cannot be qualified for. We are saved apart from a consideration of good works, but we are also saved that we might now do good works. Preaching the importance of holiness in the Christian life is not "legalism" or "works based theology," it is biblical, so long as the context is right. Paul is a model of what it means to keep these together in Ephesians 2:8-10.

I have two relationships with God.

2010-01-21T07:11:00.001-05:00

Think of this post as functioning as 'part two' of Tuesdays post, "Does God withhold blessings from me when I sin?" On Tuesday I answered that question with a resounding "No!" God does not withhold blessings from us based on our behavior, because our behavior is not the foundation of our relationship with God. We have a relationship based on grace.

But there is another way to answer the question. And that would be, well.... yes. Because there are some blessings which I believe that God might temporarily withhold from a believer based on that believer persisting in a state of sin. To be sure, none of the blessings withheld would in any way affect the state of that believer's salvation. None of the things mentioned yesterday (justification, sanctification, union with Christ, adoption, etc) can ever be taken away or lost by a believer. But there are other blessings, such as a sense of God's presence or assurance of our own salvation which we can forfeit by living in sin.

Take for example Hebrews 12:5-10, which talks about the discipline of the Lord. Now, again, this discipline is a sign of his love. But this discipline might involve the removal of some of the benefits of walking with God.

For me, the key to understanding this was to realize that I have two relationships with God. I have both a legal and a personal relationship. The legal relationship is what I wrote about on Tuesday. I have been justified, united to Christ, adopted, and I belong to Christ. Nothing can ever change any of that. Those blessings are eternally secure, nothing can take them away. (Romans 8:31-39) But I also have a personal relationship. And like all personal relationships, this one can be hindered by a lack of communion.

Consider what question #81 of the Westminster Larger catechism is saying...

Question 81: Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved?

Answer: Assurance of grace and salvation not being of the essence of faith, true believers may wait long before they obtain it; and, after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted, through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions; yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair.

In Q. 79, the catechism has just assured us that true believers, despite their sin, will not ultimately fall away from grace, they are secure in Christ. But now see what it says. Regarding our subjective sense of assurance, the catechism says that through "manifold distempers, sins, temptations and desertions" our sense of assurance of our salvation may be weakened.

Although our sins can never separate us from God (they've all already been forgiven!), they can fog up our personal relationship with our God. They can keep us from experiencing the full range of blessedness that we are meant to experience from walking with our faithful covenant savior.

I have two relationships with God. Both were begun purely by grace, and both are maintained by grace. But my personal relationship is maintained by the grace of God's spirit working in my life to produce obedience. The more I submit myself to this grace, the more I enjoy my relationship with God.

Does God withhold blessings from me when I sin?

2010-01-19T07:02:00.003-05:00

No.

How could he? Every blessing that I receive from God, I receive purely as a matter of grace. Election? Grace. Justification? Grace. Adoption? Grace. Sanctification? Grace. Glorification? Future Grace.

If our loving heavenly Father withheld his blessings from us because of our sin, I dare say that none of us would have ever received anything good from God at all. Nevertheless, I fear that many of us (myself included) live our lives as though we believed in a God who meted out his blessings to us based on our performance.

Consider. If you had an important meeting later this week regarding a promotion, what would you do? Many of us would instinctively feel that we better "step it up" this week, read our Bibles more than usual, have extended times of prayer, to make sure that come meeting day we will be on good terms with God. Habits like these go to show that despite what we say (and sing in church), we live our lives as though we have a works based relationship with God.

How good do our 'good' days have to be to merit God's blessing? "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Are they that good? How bad does a bad day have to be to drop off God's blessing list? I know we don't think in these terms. At least I don't. But my actions betray such things. Jerry Bridges says "it is because we do not fully grasp the fact that Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins that we despair of God's blessing when we have failed to live up to even our own desires to live a life that is pleasing to God."

I can say with confidence that I will sin tomorrow. I will not deserve anything from God. But at the end of the day (at at the beginning of it, and during the middle) God will look at me and see only the righteousness of Christ which has been imputed to my account. All my sins have been forgiven. What I have done or not done will not matter, my relationship will be by grace. God will take delight in blessing me no less than he takes delight in blessing Christ.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." - Ephesians 1:3

A Mighty Man Worships a Mightier God

2010-01-17T21:55:00.003-05:00

1 O Lord, in your strength the king rejoices,
and in your salvation how greatly he exults!
2 You have given him his heart's desire
and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah
3 For you meet him with rich blessings;
you set a crown of fine gold upon his head.
4 He asked life of you; you gave it to him,
length of days forever and ever.
5 His glory is great through your salvation;
splendor and majesty you bestow on him.
6 For you make him most blessed forever;
you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
7 For the king trusts in the Lord,
and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.

8 Your hand will find out all your enemies;
your right hand will find out those who hate you.
9 You will make them as a blazing oven
when you appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath,
and fire will consume them.
10 You will destroy their descendants from the earth,
and their offspring from among the children of man.
11 Though they plan evil against you,
though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
12 For you will put them to flight;
you will aim at their faces with your bows.

13 Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength!
We will sing and praise your power.

Shaking the Sleeping Soul

2010-01-16T07:52:00.003-05:00

I’d like to follow up on yesterday’s post concerning sermon styles.

I find it interesting that all the preachers Jeff named yesterday have something in common, in spite of their different styles. For they are all quite different on the surface: Mark Driscoll is grungy like Seattle and very wide angle, as Jeff said. Tim Keller is also wide angle but his temper, and temperament, are much different; he is more like a psychiatrist whereas Driscoll is more like an armed combatant. I love them both. Meanwhile, Piper is hyper-exegetical and can preach a compelling sermon on a jot or tittle, which is exactly why Jesus insisted they not be removed. (Note: I think Jeff Tell is like John Piper but sneakier. Scandalously, his sermons are not available online. We'll have to stick with comparing the three lesser lights.)

So what do these guys all have in common? Well, they are all conservative and Reformed, and they are all preaching in big liberal cities, and they are all passionate about the gospel. But there’s something about their preaching that I want to point out, something that ties their styles together even though they are different on the surface.

And it’s something that I think is absolutely essential to quality preaching.

It’s this: each of these preachers, horrified at the reality of sleeping souls, pulls the shades wide open so the light streams in, and then grabs the soul by the shoulders and shakes it till it wakes up.

That’s another way of saying this: each of these preachers, in their own way, reveals the beauty of the Scriptures and then persuasively confronts us with its application to our hearts.

Regarding beauty: the two types of sermon styles Jeff mentioned yesterday both help people see the beauty of Scripture, either in its harmony or its intricacy. The fish-eye (wide angle) preachers who “go big” are like those who are impressed with the immensity of the universe. The microscopers who “go small” are like those who see the beauty of the microscopic world—atom, molecules, DNA, and the universe contained there. Bottom line, effective preachers give you a new lens to use so you can appreciate (maybe for the first time) the beauty of the universe that is God’s word.

Regarding application: all the preachers Jeff mentioned yesterday are confrontational. They are not satisfied to say either “don’t miss the big picture” or “hey, don’t miss the nuance here” but instead take those truths and do battle with the heart. Their form of warfare may be more or less outwardly confrontational, but they are all on the same mission: to move people to worship God instead of whatever else they may be prone to worship in Seattle, Minneapolis, or New York. Unless you are dead, you are forced to get out of bed.

Here’s what I’m saying (and not saying as well as any of the guys mentioned above): Whatever the style may be, effective preaching must aim the truths of God’s word at the hearts of the hearers and take a shot. What’s great about both the fish-eye lens and the microscope, “going big” or “going small,” is that both help to rouse the soul who’s all too comfortable with their minimal knowledge of Scripture. The light streams in. Then from there, you have to start shaking…or shooting.

The Microscope and The Fish-eye Lens

2010-01-15T07:02:00.001-05:00

Recently, Ken and I were discussing the relative merits of listening to sermons by Mark Driscoll. Driscoll is a pastor in Seattle who has become quite well known in the church-planting world. He planted a church in Seattle which has become enormous, and is popular with the young, hip, urbanite crowd you think of when you think of Seattle. Nevertheless, Driscoll is quite traditional when it comes to preaching. He preaches lengthy expositional messages from the Bible, and is surprisingly conservative is his theology. These are the facts of the case.

Our discussion consisted of Ken trying to convince me that I should like Driscoll's preaching. And maybe I should. Its not that he's unbiblical, or theologically weak (quite the opposite), its just that he preaches with a fish-eye lens.

A fish-eye lens is the ultimate wide-angle lens. And Driscoll is the ultimate "big picture" kind of guy in preaching. In his sermons, he doesn't focus so much on the details of any particular text, but rather on the biblical-theological themes being developed. In other words, say Driscoll were preaching on the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. The text mentions that Jesus is tempted by Satan. Driscoll would stop, zoom the lens all the way out, and starting with Genesis 1 explain the biblical testimony concerning who Satan is. Next, the wilderness. Then Jesus. Then, with the components explained, he will begin to draw application.

I tend to preach with a microscope. I usually do the opposite of what Driscoll does. Instead of reading a passage, and then zooming the lens all the way out in order to explain it, I zoom all the way in, in order to examine each relevant detail. Why this word instead of that? Why does this sentence follow that? I explain a text from the inside out, Driscoll sets it in the context of all of scripture and draws conclusions from there.

So which way is better?

Well, I think the fish-eye lens approach is great for helping people grasp the big picture of scripture, helping them learn a biblical-theological approach and seeing the shape of all of scripture. In a place like Seattle where biblical literacy is low, this is a good thing. I think Tim Keller is also a fish-eyer.

I think the microscope is great for meditating on God's word, exposing the beauty and richness of it, and savoring the complexity. If the Holy Spirit has inspired each and every word, then not only is the text able to bear such scrutiny, but it deserves such scrutiny. John Piper preaches with a microscope. And if your pastor has ever taken five years to work through one book of the bible, he might be a microscoper too.