Receiving grace is easier than giving it

In the story of Jonah we discover that it is often much harder to give grace than to receive it. Jonah experiences repeated interventions of God’s grace but the thought of God being gracious to those he thought were undeserving drove him crazy. So crazy, in fact, that he becomes more focused on the life of a gourd than the lives of 120,000 sinful people.

Andy Stanley asks the following questions…

Who are the Ninevites in your life?
Who are the people to whom you have a hard time extending grace?
Whose calamity do you secretly celebrate?
Who do you secretly wish would get what you think they have coming to them?

If there were ever an undeserving group of people it was the Ninevites, yet God wanted to show them grace. Do I? Or is there a gourd I’d rather consume myself with?

Remember you can’t love someone you feel superior to.

I’m amazed at how similar this part of the story is to one Jesus told. There once was a king who decided to reconcile his accounts and there was one who owed 10,000 talents of gold…

What if the world ends tomorrow? Thoughts from May 20, 2011.

Headlines are being made because a small group of “christians” claiming the rapture will take place tomorrow. They claim to have searched the scriptures , calculated the hidden numerology and arrived at May 21, 2011 as the clearly identified date when the end of the world will come. (Personally, I think that’s hog wash. I could use a few *%#@ but I want to keep this clean.)

So, on my way to work this morning I reflected on my childhood growing up in terror of the rapture. Being taught that all those who hadn’t experienced a certain clearly identifiable religious experience were bound for hell, I lived petrified. Nightly I feared the rapture would happen in my sleep (guess who struggled to go to sleep?). I begged God for this experience that would indicate I had evidently earned a level of goodness to go to heaven and not hell when Jesus appears in the clouds. Every year I would hear special revival preachers, experts evidently in these matters, like Richard Heard, who would have me checking my zippers to see if I had unwittingly taken the mark of the beast and had sealed my ticket to hell.  

I can remember waking up multiple times a night and rushing down the hall to my parents door to strain my ears to hear if my parents were breathing. Usually this wasn’t too difficult since my dad’s snoring could shake the house. But occasionally there would be silence. My heart would then begin to beat so loudly in my chest,  I was convinced, in my sinful, wretched, 10 year old self that I was doomed to burn for all eternity because God hated those who had not fully lived a righteous and holy life.

However on each of these nights, suddenly, as if the resurrection had occured my father would begin to snore loudly out of dead silence and my fears would be parlayed for a few more hours. (This was all before the diagnosis of sleep apnea which would cause my dad to stop breathing in his sleep for up to 90 seconds. That IS scary.) Following this realization of my second chance I would burst through the door and ask my parents to pray that God would give me this experience, so I could be saved. After a few moments of fervent prayer, I would often try to sleep on the floor next to their bed. Frequently I would have different horrific nightmares in various forms always with the same theme such as seeing my saved parents riding an upward escalator and I, alone, on a downward escalator.

I think the worst incident was the morning I woke up looked at the clock and discovered it was time to get ready for school. I showered, changed and went out to get breakfast only to discover my parents weren’t home. I quickly ran through the house calling out their names, checked the garage to discover to my horror both cars parked in the garage. As my panic escalated I ran around the house checked literally every crevice, nothing.  I then began making phone calls to all the “saved” people I knew. No answer. I finally got my sister on the phone, who was living in Georgia at the time. This was extremely confusing for me. If there was one person I was certain was good enough to go to heaven it would be her, but there she was answering the phone.  As I attempted a normal conversation in my full blown panicked state some important details began to emerge. You need to understand I was probably around 14, and never called anybody! As my sister began to question what was happening. I ran through the story, waking up, getting ready for school, etc. She calmly pointed out that would probably be difficult to go to school since it was almost bed time. Turns out, I had fallen asleep in the afternoon, woken up in fugue, thinking it was morning but it was actually a late summer evening after dinner. My parents hadn’t been raptured as I had feared but were instead just out for an early evening stroll. I think the most shocking thing about all of this was that I had received the “religious experience” but that never removed the fear of not being good enough to face this angry God. I always worried that there was something more, some other requirement, something that I should do and then I would be ready.

Fast forward to today. I thought to myself what if it was true that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would I do differently? In the past 25 years what have I learned about Christ and my salvation. What makes me confident or fearful today? Would I want to “pray through” or “fast?” How would I make sure I’m ready?

Timothy Keller’s in his latest book the King’s Cross has a section that mentions Zechariah’s prophecy that illuminates my hope. He describes in great detail a sermon he heard about the rituals the Old Testament High Priests would go through to get ready for the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. This was the one day of the year that the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies, in the tabernacle or temple. This extensive ritual included a week of being secluded as to not touch anything unclean, followed by a night of no sleep where the priest would read the Law all night. This was all followed by a number of sacrifices, and baths for himself and the people. Evidently the whole community would watch to make sure he didn’t miss anything (their forgiveness depended on it).  Finally, after all this he would make his way into the Holy of Holies where he would meet God face to face.

Keller states it this way, “When the high priest went before God there wasn’t a speck on him; he was as pure as pure can be. Only if you understand that do you realize why the next lines of the prophecy in Zechariah 3 were so shocking: Zechariah saw Joshua the high priest standing before the presence of God in the holy of holies – but Joshua’s garments were covered in excrement. He was absolutely defiled. Zechariah couldn’t believe his eyes…God was giving Zechariah a prophetic vision so that he could see us the way that God sees us. In spite of all our efforts to be pure, to be good, to be moral, to cleanse ourselves, God sees our hearts, and our hearts are full of filth.

All of our morality, all of our good works, don’t really get to the heart, and Zechariah suddenly realized that no matter what we do we’re unfit for the presence of God. But just as he was about to despair, he heard: ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you…Listen,…I’m going to bring my servant, the Branch,…and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.’ (Zechariah 3:4 and 8-9)”

“Centuries later another Joshua showed up, another Yeshua. Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua – It’s all the same in Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew. He staged his own Day of Atonement. One week beforehand, Jesus began to prepare. And the night before, he didn’t go to sleep – but what happened to Jesus was exactly the reverse of what happened to Joshua the high priest, because if instead of cheering him on, nearly everyone he loved betrayed, abandoned, or denied him. And when he stood before God, instead of receiving words of encouragement, the Father forsook him. Instead of being clothed in rich garments, he was stripped of the only garment he had, he was beaten and he was killed naked. He was bathed too, in human spit.”  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) (Keller, King’s Cross)

So what would I do…simply trust in Jesus.

I want to add a few quotes about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sadly in all of my young, honest, desperation, I missed these simple truths growing up. I don’t know why, I don’t blame or hate anyone for that, but the following truths are what I would put my full confidence in today. They are what I would tell those closest to me to trust in.

“The gospel is that God connects to you not on the basis of what you’ve done (or haven’t done) but on the basis of what Jesus has done, in history, for you.”

“The gospel isn’t advice: It’s the good news that you don’t need to earn you way to God; Jesus has already done it for you. And it’s a gift that you receive by sheer grace—through God’s thoroughly unmerited favor.”

“He has lived the life you should have lived, he has died the death you should have died. If you rely on Jesus’ finished work, you know that God is satisfied with you.” (Keller, King’s Cross)

So if you have any anxiety, any fear, any uneasiness, trust in Jesus, it’s the only way to live. (Romans 5) So if the world does end tomorrow, I say “Bring it on!” John says it this way at the end of the Book Revelation. “Surely I (Jesus) come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

An Owner or A Hireling

I just read a chapter in Bill Hybel’s book Axiom,  An Owner or a Hireling, that really drew the line in the sand for me.

“At some point in their leadership journey, every leader gets a vision from God. They start to carry out that vision and feel extremely privileged to be doing God’s bidding here on earth. But then the road forks. One path leads to hireling status, the other to that of owner.”

This really hit because it is at this fork in the road that I have stared at for the past year. As disappointment arose so did my disorientation and disconnection. I went through a period of real darkness where I couldn’t see how things were going to work out. I think this trial has forced me into a choice of which Bill Hybel’s so eloquently states. I can be a hireling or an owner, and only one.

A hireling was “’a hired hand,’ as Jesus called halfhearted people who labored in the sheep-protection business of his day. You know the type: they’re committed to the vision God gave them to carry out until it gets too hard, the price gets too high, the fun factor gets overshadowed by the onerous challenges, and the honeymoon gets declared over and done.”

On the other hand the owner says, “God, you gave me this vision, and it’s your power that’s fueling it and your people who are accomplishing it and your glory alone that we’re fighting for. Right here and right now, I tell you all over again that I will pay any price to achieve this vision so that someday, when I get to the finish line, I’ll be able to say with Paul that I fought the good fight.”

Only time will tell the choice I make…what will you choose?

Thoughts on Romans 2

As I begin, I just want to say that the Book of Romans is deep! Given that fact there is no way a simple blog entry will do each chapter justice. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide each of our studies and lead us into all truth.

Last week I did not mention the second half of Chapter 1, verses 18-32 and that was for two reasons. One was that I ran out of time and the blog was too long, second is that I feel that passage relates more to the beginning of Chapter 2 than it does to Paul’s introduction in the beginning of Chapter 1. Remember in the original texts there were no chapter markers, the chapter markers were put in place by the translators to help us navigate quickly.

Verse 1 “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”

This is an incredibly important verse and is the connector between what I believe is simply Paul’s description of the human condition without God in the end of Romans 1. Paul gives us what the world looks like without the light of Christ. Without Christ foolishness seems wise, light seems dark, truth confused with a lie. In this condition men will naturally pursue things that are contrary to nature and God himself. Think about things we do when we are without light…have you ever walked down the hall with your arms stretched out in front of you feeling your way around, shuffling your feet trying to avoid stubbing your toe and running into things. That’s what living life in darkness looks like, it’s crazy. Imagine living life that way when the lights were on! Someone who sees the light will be able to navigate much easier.

I want to state for the record I don’t think Paul’s purpose was to create a list of sins for the Roman Church to avoid but rather to give an objective history that human beings are hopelessly lost without Christ. Here’s the deal, if you think this is a list of sins to try to avoid, by your own efforts with intention of becoming pleasing to God, you may say to yourself, well I’m doing good on 8 of the 9 so at least I’m better than Joe Smoe over there and get puffed up with a false sense of righteousness. I want to make it clear that I’m not saying God is somehow okay with the things Paul mentions, no, God hates these things. The point however is not to inform people of a list of things God hates, it is to demonstrate the wretchedness of the human condition, that’s all of our condition’s without Christ.

Thus the connector Scripture in 2:1 where he says “Therefore”, meaning given what I have just demonstrated that humankind is lost without Jesus, don’t get excited and start judging your neighbor because no matter how much knowledge of God’s likes or dislikes one might have, we are still lost without Jesus.

So when our neighbor down the street chose to get smashed on New Year’s Eve, we have no right to feel superior or judge because we went to church and prayed the New Year in. No, he’s doing what is natural for someone without Christ, someone without light will make some pretty bad decisions in the dark. The opposite is true, the person who made a Christ centered choice was just naturally doing what someone should do when they are living in the light.

I wish I could phrase this right…People aren’t better because they made a good choice and avoided running into the couch when the lights are on. It was the light that shined on the obstacle that should get the credit. Neither is God’s purpose for us to run around in the dark, when light is available, to demonstrate our superior memory of where the obstacles are. No we are to live in the light, and make decisions based on that light but never fooling ourselves that we would be somehow okay and able to make it if the light was gone.

That said, we must live our lives in accordance to the light. If we choose to pursue a lifestyle ignoring the light we will experience consequences. Just as if I walked around in daylight with my eyes closed. In Romans 2:6-8 Paul says that each individual will be rewarded or payed according to their actions. Ultimately eternal life for one, and wrath and anger for the other. That’s serious folks!

To me Paul just continues to hammer down this theme that there is no salvation other than living our lives in the light through faith in Christ Jesus. He had to take extra time to explain to the trap the Jewish Christians experienced because they had previous instruction with the Law of Moses. In verses 17-28 Paul tries to remind them that just because they have the law “the embodiment of knowledge and truth” doesn’t mean they can fulfill it or please God through it. Please don’t get confused here in verse 25, when Paul says “circumcision has value if you observe the law” the rest of the verse should clearly indicate that it is impossible to follow the law. In the end Paul says that the person who is pleasing to God is the one who is following him from the inside, which may mean Spirit led or continually led through life following the light given by the Spirit. A “circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.”

Thoughts on Romans 1

As we begin our new small group series on the Book of Romans I thought it might be important to ask,  ”Why did Paul write this letter to the church at Rome in the first place?” Paul writes to the church that consisted of both Jewish and Gentile believers to explain the gift of salvation through Jesus.

Both groups rightly believed that Jesus was the true Messiah but the Jews struggling with their old prejudices were having a hard time accepting the Gentiles’ claim to equal privilege in the Church. The Jews were continuing to be adamant that the Gentile believers also be circumcised, thus Paul writes to clarify.

According to Wikipedia an interesting historical fact is that the church in Rome was probably founded by Jewish Christians or Jews who had embraced Jesus as Messiah. These Jewish Christians spread their belief to the Gentiles but remained in leadership of the Church. In AD 49 the Jews who did not believe in Jesus and the Jewish Christians were involved in such bitter fighting over whether Jesus was the Messiah that both groups were expelled from Rome. This expulsion left the Gentile Christians to take over. As you can imagine, it’s one thing to accept the Gentile Christians’ belief in Jesus; it’s another to allow them to be full equal partners in the church given the Jewish Christians’ heritage as the exclusive “people of God.”  In 54 AD the Jews and Jewish Christians returned to Rome and encountered a vastly different Church. So the problem that this book addresses may have been that the old Jewish Christian leadership wanted to clean things up by requiring the Gentile believers to be circumcised which confused the Gospel of Jesus with Judaism.

Paul then begins the book of Romans by clearly stating he was not only a believer but a servant of Christ Jesus. He supports his belief in Christ Jesus stating that the messiah was promised in the Holy Scriptures which would have been important to the Jewish believers. Paul in verse 3 makes a theological comment about the nature of Jesus as being both fully human as a descendant of David and also fully God by his resurrection.

The statement “Jesus Christ our Lord” was how the early believers referred to Jesus which was equivalent in their minds to the Old Testament Shema or foundational statement of faith found in Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

So Paul makes the statement that Jesus is Lord, the promised messiah, the one true God in flesh. This does not allow for any belief that Paul thought Jesus was just a good man or a great prophet with some good ideas about life. No Paul clearly thought that Jesus was the Savior of the World the fulfillment of all of God’s promises about salvation.

Next Paul clearly states that this Salvation was not just for the Jews but he states in verse 5 that this message was to “call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience for his name’s sake.” This letter was to establish all believer’s equal rights in Christ, both Jewish and Gentile.

I also wanted to mention that when Paul states we are called to belong to Jesus given the audience he is writing to he is expanding the definition of “people of God.” Now the chosen ones were all who believe. This is clearly in contrast to the Old Testament teaching that only the children of Israel were considered the “people of God.” Here Paul declares to the rest of us the amazing opportunity afforded to us by the gospel of Jesus.

In a world where it is nearly impossible to change one’s status or class, Christ offers s something much more than riches or fame but the opportunity to be a child of God. (1 Peter 2:10)

I also want to share this cool verse that gives Paul’s desire to come and visit the church at Rome “that I may impart some spiritual gift” as well as “that I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” This appears to be a great reason for fellowship amongst believers: the sharing and imparting of spiritual gifts and mutual encouragement of the faith. Hopefully this semester our small groups will reflect Paul’s desire as we meet with each other. Let us come prepared to both impart and be encouraged by each other.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” Romans 1:16

“The righteous will live by faith” will be one of the foundational themes throughout this book and means that both the Jew and Gentile believers will approach and receive God’s salvation through Jesus the same way: BY FAITH.

 

How the Mighty Churches Fall

Thankfully, I learned, as did those around me, that gimmicks almost never worked. Only when we went back to caring for people, disciplining teachable leaders, introducing people to Jesus, and worshipping with a hearty spirit did things get back on track.

Gordon MacDonald

I read a really great article inspired by the book How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins which I haven’t had the pleasure to read just yet.  I’ve heard it’s really good (no Great!). I felt this article would be worth sharing as it gets to some core problems that all of us in churches must keenly be aware of.

The article entitled How Mighty Churches Fall can be seen here.

The five major bullets that correspond to the book are…

• Hubris born of success
• Undisciplined pursuit of more
• Denial of risk and peril
• Grasping for salvation
• Capitulation to irrelevance or death

Just pondering these bullet points makes me want to go buy the book right now. How many of us are found wanting on this inventory? It’s time to get back to momentum building of the flywheel principle from Good to Great.

Don’t Give Up – The Story is not Over Yet.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Paul to the Galatians (6:9)

Life discourages. Expectations fail. Disappointments rise. Sometimes we get tired, disoriented, maybe even a little nauseous and we want the ride to stop so we can get off. It seems the contradiction that we pay lots of money to ride roller coasters and watch movies for entertainment yet when our life resembles one we don’t think it’s fun. We like to control our terror, manage our excitement and in the end basically live a predictable life. Our illusion of control must be humorous to God, no maybe it’s tragic. In our blind arrogance we express our bold disappointment. Like the irony of clay speaking harshly to the potter, “I’m not thrilled with the changes you are making.” When our lives are the ones affected thoughts we previously held so clearly seem to get lost in the fog.  We discover out of the haze of crisis that we have in fact not become Job, but Job’s friends or maybe even worse, Job’s wife. Critical, judgmental, self-righteous instead of humble, patient and obedient.

Someone who cares for my wife and I greatly took us to dinner and afterward prayed for us and during his prayer quoted the above verse about not giving up. I could feel the encouragement well up within me like a root beer float foaming up and over the top of the glass. The rough times are not here to stay. We need to keep walking through the valley because God’s not done with us yet.

So take heart.