Saturday, August 29, 2009

Asking Or Demanding?

The story of Job is becoming all too familiar and I feel like I am in danger of encountering the same experience with God. Job had everything going for Him and then had it all taken and cried out to God as to why all this happened. God’s response happens in chapter 38 and as I read through this again in my circumstances I hear God asking me the same questions.

I recently had to shut down my painting business because of economic depression. I have a job now which I am thankful for, but it barely lets me get by. I will not get into a huge sob story of how bad I think I have it right now but will cap things off with this. Last night on my way home my truck died. This morning at the shop they told me that my head gasket had blown and would need a new engine. I don’t know why all these things are piling up on me right now and I am asking God all kinds of questions and all I can hear is His response to Job.

“The Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man and I will ask you, and you instruct me! Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have any understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know…”

We can come to God and cry out to Him in tough times in our life and there is nothing wrong with that. The book of Psalms is an interaction between David and God with Him crying out to Him in dire circumstances. The problem is in how we cry out to Him. Job was crying out demanding answers for why he was going through his situation as if God owed him an explanation. God doesn’t owe us an explanation for what we go through. The pressure of life can become a heavy burden that we can try and carry on our own, but the promise that Jesus offers to us can relieve of this burden. He says to “Come to me all you are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” Matt. 11:28.

I will say with all honesty and humility that I feel weary and heavy laden. My prayer is this. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me for thinking you owe me an explanation for things that happen in life. God would you please give me and all those who are overwhelmed rest. We don’t need answers to why things are the way they are, but would you come through in such a way that You would be put on display and Your power would be made known. Amen.”

Saturday, August 22, 2009

The Time Is Now

After Israel had been released from the Babylonian captivity they were instructed to rebuild the Temple. This account can be found in the book of Ezra 1-5 and Haggai 1-2. The problem is that the people did not rebuild the temple, but instead used the materials that had been given to them from the Babylonian king Cyrus to build very nice houses. Haggai who is a prophet at this time speaks out under God's direction and says something that shocks me to the very core. Haggai 1:2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘This people says’, ‘the time has not yet come, even the time for the house of the Lord to be built.” God had given Israel instructions and the people ignored them looking out for their own interests and instead of God calling them “my people” He calls them “this people.” There is a severe disconnect between God and His people, so much so, that they are no longer “my” people. It is one thing to claim to be God’s people and it is another thing to actually be it. God’s people follow and do what He tells them to do. When you do not do what God has called you to do you fall out of the “my” people category and into “this” people.

The call that God has given us today and that we need to be doing is found in Matt. 28:18-20. Unfortunately I do not think we are living up to this right now and it scares me because I fear that God may be calling the church today “this” people and not “my” people. We have moved away from what God has called us to do and are doing what is more convenient and easy. Jesus picked a few guys and poured into them for about 3 years knowing that He could not be here forever and someone would have to take His place. The same thing needs to be happening in the church today. Jesus said “follow Me” in other words do the things that I do, yet we are not doing what Jesus did. Albeit we are doing some of the things Jesus did, but we are not following through with all that He did. We are doing the easy stuff and leaving out the making disciples of His command. He says that “All authority has been given to Him… Go,” which means that He is sending us with the same authority that He Himself possesses. Sadly I do not see this happening. The question then is this. Are you part of the “my” people or “this.” Haggai 1:2 “this people says the time has not yet come.” However, Jesus said John 5:25 “a time is coming and the time is now.” I think I will get on board with the time is now. I don’t want to be “this” people.

Monday, August 17, 2009

"Jesus Wept" (Updated)

When I hear people talk about this passage I hear things like “look Jesus was showing that He was just like us and is sad to lose a friend. See even Jesus was human, he cried, He experiences human emotions and can relate to us.” but is that really what these 2 words contain? While you could draw simple conclusions like this I believe there is much more going on here that is never talked about. In John 11 there is a story of a man that was a good friend of Jesus and died. But before Lazarus died his sisters sent a messenger to Jesus telling him to come because Lazarus was sick. Interestingly enough Jesus does not come right away to help His friend but waits a couple of days resulting in Lazarus’ death. Jesus arrives on the scene after Lazarus had been in the grave for a couple of days and the reaction of the people is what brings about the shortest verse in the bible that everyone likes to quote. But what does this simply mean that Jesus wept? Was it tears of sorrow for a lost friend or tears of indignation toward people and the condition that sin has brought about in their lives?

From the very outset Jesus says that this will not end in death. So what is the problem with the people and their view of Jesus? Some key things to note about what Jesus has already said about Himself. John 10:10; 28 “a thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so they may have life and have it abundantly. And I will give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 8:12 “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.” There are also many other passages that affirm Jesus’ dominion over life and death. While these passages speak of a spiritual reality the same implication can be brought into the physical. If someone is capable of sealing someone’s spiritual destiny how much more can he do so over the physical? John 1:1-3 the Word/Jesus was with God in the beginning. All things came into being through Him/Jesus. Apart from Him/Jesus nothing came into being that has come into being. Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all physical and spiritual realities. Even after all that Jesus had said about Himself the closest people to Him could not fully understand it. This does not make them bad people, but shows that sin plays a very manipulative role in our understanding of God.

The problem here is that they do not truly believe that Jesus is and can do what He claims to be and do. You can see this in Jesus’ interaction with Martha. She was looking merely at the spiritual and not the temporal condition of her brother. When Mary met with Jesus she had the same response of her sister “if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” This family that summoned Jesus was not an acquaintance. They were very close friends it says “the one you love is sick.” With that type of intimacy their unbelief of Him being Lord over all life and death brings Him to tears. Not tears of sorrow but indignation. Jesus becomes angry when He sees all of the people mourning over the death of Lazarus. Jesus is filled with indignation toward sin and its outcome. This anger moves Jesus to shed tears over the people who did not grasp who He was. The resurrection of Life was in front of them and they did not believe. Imagine that you are Jesus and you claim to be the Son of God giver and taker of life. You have performed all the miracles He had up till this time and has told you this sickness will not end in death. Then, you encounter some of your closest friends and they say if only you had been here earlier you could have done something. As if the creator and sustainer of all had missed His opportunity to perform a mighty work. Sort of like a paramedic who arrives after the body has been deceased for an hour. Oh, if only you had gotten here earlier. The fact that Satan can manipulate us and sin has played such a rampant role in keeping us from God insights anger in Jesus over the control sin has in our lives to the point of Him shedding tears.

One of the things this story brings out is that weeping, suffering, and death are presented as facts of life. But there are other facts than these. Jesus is hope in the presence of death and a hope that continues after the death of those we care about. This is why Jesus wept. The people did not have any hope. They thought all was lost when the only hope they had to live for was right in front of their eyes. The people didn’t get it completely wrong. The people had it right by referencing the healing of the blind man and Jesus being able to heal Lazarus. But the fact that they made this statement shows they were puzzled and confused by the situation. The fact that they questioned this shows their unbelief in what Jesus is capable of.

Jesus is the light of the world and no one comes to the Father but though Him. How often do we make Jesus weep still today? If the light of the world has been given to us and we do not take it into the darkness I believe it grieves Jesus to the point of tears not out of sorrow because people are dying, but out of anger because we have the hope of the world and we are not doing anything about it. This is an emergency because Christ is coming again and if we do not bring His light into dark places they face the same condition as Lazarus except they will be spiritually dead, separated from God for eternity. If we know this fact and do nothing about it I believe that Jesus weeps. The problem today is the same as then. The light of the world has made Himself known and people still do not believe. If we are selfish enough to do nothing about it I believe it frustrates our Lord because essentially we are doing what Jonah did. Not wanting to share the Good News of Christ because we know God is gracious and will have mercy on them. When we do this I believe Jesus weeps. There is hope in this world and that hope is in Christ. Let us be the ambassadors that He has called us to be and let Him respond with well done my good and faithful servant and not in tears!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

2 Types Of Leaders In The Church

When think about the leaders in the church 2 types come to mind pastoral and administrative. A pastoral leader is one who is in charge of growing and developing the church and the administrative is in charge of meeting the needs of the church. But one is not better than the other based on the role that is being played. Philippians 2:19-30 gives a good description of what each of these leaders looks like. Paul and timothy would be examples of a pastoral leader and Epaphroditus would be the administrative one. It is interesting to see how Paul describes the two. He places them on the same field. Both are equally necessary and important. I would like to point out some key points about both from this passage.

The Pastoral Leader
We as leaders should have some type of desire to send out workers to do the work of the Lord. Our hope to fulfill this role is found in the will of the Lord.
i. Christ’s plans and purposes are center.
ii. Everything that we do must be centered in Christ.
iii. Your desire is that it would be the Lord’s desire also.
iv. The question you ask to figure that out is; would God approve of this?
Our sending people out is not just for the good of the people but for our own good.
i. The workers will be a blessing because they will be able to assess situations and bring about resolve to problems
ii. Seeing the fruit within your ministry is a great encouragement.
iii. We need to be looking for the growth and development in the church.
iv. We need to be looking to assess problems and needs and address them.
We need to assure those whom you are sending workers to, that they are qualified. The needs of the church must be handled in a genuine manner.
i. You must qualify yourself as a shepherd of the flock.
ii. The needs of the church are not subordinate to your own desires.
Most people do not qualify as a true shepherd to the flock.
i. They lack the right spirit.
ii. They look out for their own desires.
iii. They lack a self-sacrificial attitude.
iv. They only help when Christ’s gain is compatible with theirs
v. They don’t have genuine unselfish devotion to the church.
vi. They use God’s gifts for their own advancement.
vii. They are unfit to carry out the task.
We must prove ourselves worthy of this task.
i. We need to be focused and withstand the test of character.
ii. Our virtue will show us approved.
As soon as everything is in place is the time when we send those who have shown themselves approved.
i. You must be strategic in the use of workers.
ii. Even in the face of trouble we must not be completely focused on our own situations.
iii. Paul was in prison facing the death penalty and was still looking for the “right time” to send Timothy.
We as leaders have to have the desire to go out and do the work of the Lord. We don’t just send those who have shown themselves approved, we go too.
i. Once you have established yourself some where does not mean that you detach yourself from everything else you have done.
ii. We are one family that needs to be looking out for each other regardless of distance between locations.
iii. The Lord’s will and permission should be the determining factor of whether we act.
iv. The work of the Lord does not start and end in your church.
v. You are the example to those under you and they are to model what you do. This is the core essence of discipleship.

The Administrative Leader
Sees or hears about a need in the church and steps up to get it done.
i. This does not make them any less important.
ii. They are described as brothers. They are part of this adopted family.
iii. They are on the same team working for the same goal but with a different responsibility.
iv. They are soldiers on the front lines.
v. They have been gifted to minister to specific needs and perform special services within the church.
Even in the task of serving the church there will be opposition.
i. Simple service to the church will bring hardship.
ii. We have been stopped several times by police because we were handing out water bottles for free on the street corner.
iii. But God is faithful to those in service to Him and will have mercy on them.
God’s mercy is not isoltaed to pastoral leaders. It encompasses many.
i. It brought mercy upon Epaphroditus
ii. It brought mercy upon Paul.
iii. It brought mercy upon the church.
How do we respond to workers when they return from their task?
i. We are to rejoice in the Lord.
ii. We are to hold them in high regard.
Because they have risked their life for the service of the church and because the church had a need that they could not fulfill and the worker stepped up to fulfill it.

So the question is this. Who are the Timothy's and Epaphroditus' in your ministry? If you cannot think of anyone, then i would like to know what you are going to do about it?

Saturday, August 8, 2009

This is my first time posting a video and not sure how often i will do it, but this sends chills down my spine. Absolutely amazing chorale performance of Immanuel with children, youth, and adults. WOW!!!

If you cannot view the video click here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE_tuMpIOho

Seeing little kids sing out so passionately rocks my world! Hope you enjoy this.

Making Observations As You Read

One of the most important things you can do when reading the Bible is make observations. This is the key to understanding the context without adding to the meaning from what you have read elsewhere. One of the biggest problems people make when trying to interpret what the Bible is saying is by bringing their presuppositions to the text and not letting the text speak for itself. Part of the reason for this is because the Bible is not easy to read and it takes time if you truly want to understand it. There are essentially 4 stages that you need to go through as you read the Bible 1. Observations – this is probably the most time consuming because it takes diligence to think about what you are reading without giving up. 2. Interpretation – Here you pull together a coherent meaning. What does God mean and what did the human author mean. 3. Application – Here you look for commands to obey, promises to proclaim, examples to follow, sins to avoid, truths and principles about God. 4. Correlation – Here is where you connect the passage with other parts of scripture. (Usually this is the first step people take to understand the passage and usually why they misinterpret it.)

Since the observation process is the hardest, most demanding, and time consuming let me give you an example of how to make observations in the text.

John 5:24-25 NIV
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned: he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”

1. We not only need to hear the words of salvation we need to believe them.
2. If we hear the words of salvation and believe them we have eternal life.
3. Eternal life does not have an end.
4. The words we hear and believe keep us from condemnation.
5. The words bring spiritual life to the spiritually dead.
6. We are being told truth.
7. “Whoever” means this is open to anyone not s specific group of people.
8. The living will pass on the words to the dead to give them life.
9. The time is coming.
10. The time is now.
11. We must believe God sent Christ to give eternal life.
12. We all begin spiritually dead.
13. The Son of God has already come and given the words of salvation.
14. We are no longer dead because of what Christ said.
15. We need to be listening to hear the words.
16. Condemnation is judgment on the dead.
17. There is no judgment on the living.
18. The son of God brought words that bring freedom from judgment.
19. God doesn’t want to judge anyone so He sent His Son.
20. God judges those who reject the Sons words.
21. Your judgment is because you chose not to believe.
22. The reason we live is because we heard the voice of the Son of God.
23. The voice of the Son of God is powerful.
24. The Son of God has already spoken.
25. We don’t have to wait for life we can have it now.
26. The reason you are still dead is because you are not listening or you have not believed.

I am sure given more time you could add to this list but this is not supposed to be completely comprehensive just an example. (It took me about 2 hours to come up with this list… it is very time consuming and demanding) Since the observations have been made you can now begin to go through the other stages of interpretaion, application and correlation. Now that you have seen what it looks like to make observations I challenge you to take the next 3 verses John 5:26-29 and see how many you can come up with. If you are willing to spend the time in deep thought and meditation prayerfully reading you will begin to hear God speak and the text will become alive right before your eyes. After all, this is the living breathing word of God. Hope this helps someone out there in their pursuit to read and understand the Bible more clearly.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Discipleship Or Lack There Of

So I am sitting here contemplating what it means to truly disciple someone and the only thing that I can think of is duplicating yourself. This was Jesus’ entire goal in what He was doing with His disciples. So the question I have is why aren’t we doing this in the church? This is not to point out any church in particular because I believe this is an epidemic not an isolated infection.

Several observations will illustrate my point. If you were to ask the average member in a church how their time alone with God is they will more than likely say they struggle because the Bible is hard to understand. Ask them to pray and it will probably sound like something from Meet the Fockers. Ask them when the last time they shared their faith or to explain the Gospel and they will probably say never or they are not sure. Ask them how their prayer life has been and they will say it could be a lot better. Ask them who they are discipling and there will be no one because they are not even sure what that means.

I think the church is doing a pretty good job at introducing people to Jesus but once that commitment to follow Him has been established we leave them on their own to try and figure out how to know God intimately and deeply. After all, it is a “personal” relationship so our responsibility is over. It’s sort of like “Hey bob this is Jesus, Jesus this is Bob. Alright see yall later.” I think this is where the church needs to rethink their responsibility in how to grow their congregations. We need to be teaching people how to read the Bible and pray and how to share their faith and help new believers know God more intimately and pour into others what has been poured into them. But here is the kicker, this does not happen from the pulpit! Discipleship does not start and finish with the pulpit; it begins and ends in a personal relationship. That is how Jesus did it and that is how we need to do it.

The problem that I see is that leaders are too busy with other things to invest the time it takes to disciple someone or they have become lazy. Excuses like I have a wife and family or I already spent 40 hours in the office this week or I just don’t have the time begin to surface. Regardless of the excuse we must be making time to spend alone with one or two people pouring into them like Jesus did the disciples. This is not easy to do and I believe it is why leaders are no longer doing this. It takes time and sacrifice and they just aren’t willing to sacrifice anymore.

We need to be sitting down with people and teaching them how to listen when they read the Bible. After all, it is more than just the words on the pages that speak to us. We need to teach them how to make observations and connections in the text. One of the helpful Bible study methods that I have been introduced to is called “Lectio Divina.” It means holy or divine reading. It is the process of reading a passage over and over listening and observing different things you are hearing while praying for God to speak to you as you contemplate what you are reading. My professor from Trinity College of Florida introduced me to this. Over the semester at the beginning of class we would read Luke 11 and everyone would have to point out something they heard God speaking to them. 30 times we read that passage over the semester with 15 students’ making new observations every time. It was a very spiritually challenging semester for me.

Leaders have an obligation because of the position they are in to reproduce themselves and they must be investing time in someone else’s life in the so they can in time let that person go so they can do the same thing to another. It may sound cheesy but it is the pay it forward method. It may take time for this to be effective but we have to start somewhere. So the question is this. Who are you investing time in teaching how to read the Bible, pray, evangelize, disciple, do missions…?