I just finished Malcom Gladwell’s bestselling book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.  This was a great book which raised surprisingly a very interesting question about authenticity in Christianity.  Gladwell was reporting the findings of a research project done by Princeton University called the “Good Samaritan Experiment.”  This is obviously based off of the very familiar parable told by Jesus in the Gospels.  The experiment was to see how students of Princeton’s Theological Seminary would respond if they were placed into a modern-day situation that closely resembled the narrative of the famous parable.  The seminary students selected for this experiment were told that they were to give a sermon on the famous parable in a building across the campus from the seminary buildings.  Along the way the students would encounter a person who was in obvious need of help.  This would be a man planted in an alleyway who would be slumped over with his eyes closed who was coughing and moaning obviously in need of the help of a passerby.  This experiment ends up becoming the ultimate test of authenticity for the seminary students.  They were being called to practice what they would be preaching on the way to deliver the sermon.  There would be no way for a studied seminary student to draw different conclusions than Jesus does in the explanation of His parable.  Clearly if the student passed by the man in need of help, they would be fulfilling the role which the parable clearly teaches should not be filled.  The seminary students were broken down into two groups who were both told two different things before departing on their walk to the sermon.  The first group, which we will call Group A, was told that the sermons were running quicker than expected and that they were needed to come and present their sermon immediately.  The second group, Group B, was told that the sermons were running slower than expected and that they could take their time on the way to deliver the sermon.  What is interesting from the results of the experiment was that the students in Group B stopped more frequently than the students in Group A.  Another way of stating the conclusion is that the seminary students likelihood of stopping to help was more based on the amount of time that the student perceived himself or herself as having prior to the scheduled sermon.  The authenticity of the student with regard to the content and message of the sermon was totally pushed to the side in order to be on time for the presentation.  This experiment leads to results that are so true in my life and your life.  We so often become busy and driven by things that we think that we must do and be that we fail to follow through with our convictions.  We may passionately believe in sharing our faith with others, yet in the busyness of our lives, we blow by people who do not know Jesus without a passing thought.  We have a conviction and desire to show grace to others, yet we go into a fit of rage when someone cuts us off on the road or messes up our order at the drivethru.  We are so driven by our schedules and the mindset that we do not have time that it leads us to not act on our convictions and this be inauthentic in following after Jesus and His priorities.

A few days ago, my great uncle passed away from a several week fight with lung cancer.  This has raised several discussions that I have been involved in with regard to death and how should those that remain respond to the passing of a loved one.  In thinking over the funerals that I have attended, I think that there seems to be a recurring theme with regards to the message that the pastor gives on such a sad occasion.  The standard funeral message serves to memorialize the person and to call the congregation to a deeper awareness of the brevity of life and the need for salvation.  I think that the gospel is a key to be presented in such a situation because you are never so close to thoughts on death and eternity than at a funeral service.  I think that the key item that tends to fall through the cracks in the midst of a funeral is a call to the believers to live in light of this eternity that the person being memorialized has recently stepped into.  There is this idea of an eternal perspective on life that is clearly outlined in the Bible but is so often missed in the midst of our consumer-driven version of American Christianity.  We tend to miss the fact that the world around us is headed for an eternity without Jesus Christ and that we need to open our eyes to the world around us.  This eternal perspective not only grants us a renewed focus on evangelism, but it leads us to reevaluate out daily priorities.  What is eternal is what matters.  This will be relationships.  The first and foremost relationship that matters is our relationship with Jesus Christ.  The second relationships that will matter are our relationships with those around us.  We need to be reminded of what really matters so that we will live a life prioritising eternal matters.

Over the past few years, there have been a variety of news stories both local and national about ministers of the gospel falling into sin and being removed from the church.  These stories are saddening to hear about, but it seems like the majority of the time someone falls in the church whether they are considered a minister or not the situation is not handled with grace.  I want to raise some questions regarding the current process of dealing with sin in church leadership and to suggest some thoughts to make it more biblical.  I want to make one thing clear before I start these thoughts: sin is a very serious issue.  Your sin and my sin both the “big ones” and the “small ones” led to the crucifixion of Jesus.  Sin always produces death.  It may be the death of a relationship, friendship, or marriage, or it may be physical death.  We live in a world every day where each one of us struggles with sin.  It is an ever-present mark of our fallen world.  Even if we do not want to admit it, each one of us lives each day with what the Apostle Paul calls a “thorn in the flesh” (see 2 Corinthians 12: 7) that causes us to struggle daily.  So when we turn to look at ministers, we must realize that even though they may have been to a seminary and stand on a stage every week they still have struggles.  They are in leadership in the church and should be held to a high standard of accountability, but they still struggle with sin.  When someone falls publicly and is removed from a position of ministry, the first unbiblical thing that is commonly done is that the Christians begin to stone the person in their minds.  You hear statements like “I cannot believe that he or she would do something like that.  He or she is a horrible person!”  The thing that we tend to forget in our mental and verbal stonings of the fallen is that we have struggles with sin also.  We tend to place ourselves in a mental state of judgement condemning others while missing “the log in our own eye” (See Matthew 7: 3-4 and Luke 6: 41-42).  When we look at how Jesus handled sinners, we see the picture of Jesus with the woman who had been caught in adultery in John 8.  This is one of the most compelling pictures of grace in the gospels.  The woman has been caught in the act of what we would consider a really “bad sin” and has been drug by the legalistic religious pharisees to Jesus.  They have brought her to Jesus to try to catch Him into not abiding by the Old Testament law regarding adultery.  Jesus is well aware of the law which says that this woman deserves to be stoned to death.  So he tells the people that the person without sin can be the one to start the stoning.  The people starting with the oldest all walk away because they realize the sin and struggles in each of their own lives.  The people realize that they are not in a place to judge this woman.  Jesus and the woman remain.  He is the one who is sinnless and can throw the stones, but in the moment that He can be the righteous judge, Jesus looks into the eyes of the broken and ashamed woman and tells her to “go and sin no more.”  I think that so often in this story we want to be the people with the stones in our hands waiting to rid the world of the sinner, but Jesus is calling us to show radical grace to the broken and hurting who have fallen.  I am not saying here that sin should be blown over and taken lightly, but rather that their needs to be a grace-driven process of restoration for the fallen and hurting.  Fallen people are in a time of great need and vulnerability, and the worst thing we can do is to stone them instead of showing grace, love, and compassion to a broken soul.

I have really been struggling over the last few weeks with reaching out to some students that I care about that have been turned off to Christianity.  They have grown up in a Christian environment that was so overly religious that in the midst of the constant dos and don’ts of religion they miss what a relationship with Christ is all about.  All they have seen Christianity as being is a legalistic stick used by people to beat them into becoming a “good person.”  I think that this is an all to common picture that students tend to pick up from our churches.  This picture is totally unbiblical.  It is unbiblical in that Jesus calls us in the gospels to follow Him and to make disciples of all nations.  This is an invitation not into a world defined by dos and don’ts.  Jesus invites us on a journey driven by faith to discover who He is, who we are in Him, and who He is calling us to be.  I think we tend to miss the point of who is the one doing the action in this faith journey that we are on.  It is Jesus Christ who is the one who handles all of the big theological words that we like to use to describe our faith journey: our salvation, the process of our current sanctification, and our future glorification.  When we surrendered our lives to Jesus, we became passive beings on a faith journey with Him.  What we tend to do however is to want to take back parts of our lives especially with regards to our sanctification which is the process of us gradually looking more and more like Jesus.  It is so easy for us to become modern day pharisees who make a lot of rules and regulations to lead to personal self-achieved sanctification.  We then go one step further and try to apply our 10 Step Plan to Holiness to others and judge others for the blemishes in their lives.  This is the state that it is so easy for a church to get into.  This is something that people, especially students, can see straight through and are totally turned off by.  We need to come back to a biblical picture: we are all broken people who have been saved by the grace of Jesus, and He is the one who is putting the broken pieces of our lives back together.  We must remember that we have been shown much grace and to give grace to others.  The grace of Jesus as seen through His bride the church is what will draw a watching world to Him!

This was originally posted December 31st , 2006: 

We have once again come to the end of another year.  Today I have done some reflection on what God has done for me.  God remains faithful to me year after year even when I fail Him daily.  This time of year, I usually sit down and come up with a list of things that I will resolve to accomplish in the upcoming year.  This list usually includes physical, spiritual, and emotional goals.  The cycle repeats itself every year when I set down these things that I want to do, fail to do them and then feel bad that I failed to do them.  So this New Years Eve, I am going to seek to live a life fully surrendered to the Lordship of Christ.  This will be a year in which I pray that I will become less so the Christ can become more in every area of my life.  In looking at resolutions in this way, I am allowing God to show me more and more of His faithfulness in allowing Him to mold me and make me into His glorious image.  This will be a New Year based in His faithfulness and goodness and not in my unfaithfulness and failure.  When I set down a list of acts that I am going to perform, I will fail, but when I, through the power of the Holy spirit working in me, submit to the Lordship of Christ to work in and through my life, I will succeed.

When we come to the Christmas season, we are met with many things to do.  Our lives tend to immediately get busy and hurried in the midst of all the presents, parties, and others things that make this season so loved by many.  But before we get lost in the craziness of the season, let us take a look back to the beginnings of this holiday.

 The Gospel of John begins with a great picture of Christmas.  He gives this picture of Jesus (who he calls the Word) being the Creator, Sustainer, and Giver of life.  He shows us a great and powerful God, and then he says “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14a ESV).  This is the center of what Christmas is all about.  The Creator of the world, the Author of life, the Originator of all beauty, and the Sustainer of all came down into our world.  This loving God was willing to come down into our world which is scarred with the pains of grief, crying out with hurts, and full of sin and corruption.  The holy God of the universe stepped down into our pain and world to redeem us from it.  He came from His home in Glory to make a way through His own suffering and death to bring us to Glory and to restore fellowship with us.

This Redeemer, however, did not come on the scene as many would expect.  The lightning did not flash, the earth did not shake, and the angels did not belt out a joyful noise.  No, the God of the universe came as a baby, and He was “wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger, because there was no room in the inn” (Luke 2: 7b ESV).  God comes on the scene and is given no kingly treatment.  The God of the universe should have at least been given a room in the inn, but instead he is born in an animal food trough.  Jesus Christ comes to redeem His people and everyone seems to miss it.  The writer of John says it this way: “The true light which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.  He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him” (John 1: 9-11 ESV).  He came to bring light into the darkness of our world, and we missed Him.

This Christmas in the midst of all our trees, Santas, gifts, families, Christmas parties, and dinners will we miss Jesus?  It is very easy during the busy holiday season for us to forget what is important.  Jesus wants a relationship with you this Christmas season.  He wants to spend some time with you this Christmas.  The question is “Will you be like the wisemen and shepherds and seek Him, or will you miss Jesus this Christmas?”

“God’s respect to the creature’s good, His respect to Himself, is not a divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at is happiness in union with Himself.”                                                                                 -

 Jonathan Edwards in The End for which God Created the World

We are all on a search for happiness and fulfillment at some level.  There is a void down deep inside each of us that we are seeking to fill.  There are many different ways that we can seek to fill that void including relationships, drugs, popularity, and achievement.  The thing that God keeps bringing me back to is the fact that my true happiness can only be found in my relationship with Him.  St. Augustine said it best in stating that “Thou madest us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”  The Jonathan Edwards quote above speaks to the same idea that all of our true happiness is found in union with God.  This is something that seems so elementary and easy to understand, yet it is very hard to live.  It is so hard for me to escape from all of the television , internet and all of the other things around me to spend time pursuing my relationship with Jesus in which all of my true happiness is found.  I tend to forfeit happiness and joy in God for the temporary pleasures of something that will never in the end satisfy.

 

I went out and bought the Everything Is Spiritual Tour DVD by Rob Bell after having it highly recommended on several podcasts that I frequently listen to.  Rob Bell, the teaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, never seems to disappoint.  What I really love about listening to or watching Rob is the different angle and view of presentation that he takes when presenting the Bible and the gospel.  Rob’s preaching always has very strong backing in historical Jewish tradition and the Hebrew scriptures.  This adds a whole new dimension when Rob preaches on both the Old and New Testament biblical text.  The Everything Is Spiritual Tour left me thinking for hours and what will probably be days after the end of the short 1 1/2 hour DVD.  In this message, Rob looks into the first chapter of Genesis.  This study is documented throughout the film on the biggest white board that the world has ever seen.  Through this message Rob breaks down the initial word for God in Genesis 1:1 which is Elohim by showing the picture of a God living together in community in the trinity.  He makes an obvious point from the beginning of the discussion to view the text from Genesis as a piece of Hebrew poetry.  This is important to note because as is clear from the nature of the message he is intending on pulling all people in the room whether they consider themselves to be spiritual people or not into this message.  Then there is an argument from the existence of God painted by Rob showing the ideal position and design of earth in order to maintain human life.  Rob then goes on to break down the complexities and oddness of the functioning of the universe from the huge things such as stars and galaxies to the small things like an atom. This discussion then leads back to his core argument in Genesis 1.  He uses an extended comparison between the physical creation of the world and animals seen in Genesis 1 and the detailed creation of man in the end of Genesis 1 and more closely focused on in Genesis 2 where man is seen as being not only physical but spiritual.  Rob argues from the context of Genesis 1 and 2 that man is the only part of creation where there is not only a physical aspect to man but a spiritual one.  As he points out, this has huge implications on the lives of humans.  We are all at our core spiritual beings, but some people just decide not to recognize that fact.  It is like they are living in a two dimensional world when the world is really three dimensional.  Rob points out that dividing the physical and spiritual leads to several problems that we see in American Christianity.  When we see God and spirituality as being only existent at a single location or day and time of the week, we disconnect ourselves from who Jesus Christ has called us to be.  Rob pointed out a view of the church which is a picture of people living in community trying to encourage and learn from each other about what it looks like to follow Jesus and then looking outward to see how they can most effectively be Jesus’s hands and feet to the world around them.  He ends with a picture of the gospel and Jesus Christ who makes the whole world fit together and has handcrafted each person with a spiritual longing for Him.  This is an excellent and thought provoking message that I highly recommend.  For more information about the Everything Is Spiritual Tour, check out the tour’s website.

This was written in Janurary 2007: 

Over the last few weeks at my church, our pastor has been preaching about devotions and seeking God both intentionally and daily.  He was talking about how there are morning and night people when it comes to devotions, and they tend to do nothing at the other time.  That is definitely me.  So, he suggested coming up with a pledge of allegiance to God to read/pray the other time.  This is something that tells God that you know both your place and His, that you are willing to submit to Him being Lord of that day, seeking the Holy Spirit’s help and direction battling temptation that day, and praying that He alone gets the glory in your day.  I started doing this prayer this week.  It has been so encouraging to just start your day with deciding who you will serve.  This prayer helps fuel my drive to serve God, reminds me of who I am and who my Lord is, and helps me to surrender to the Holy Spirit in times of temptation.  I would highly recommend incorporating this somehow into your day.  It has been a source of encouragement and strength for me, and I hope that it is for you also.