How is your posture?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my posture lately…maybe do to the pinched nerve I suffered about a month ago.  I’ve been forced into a good physical posture thanks to that exciting little event.  Perhaps it is my physical condition that influences my question this morning, “How is your posture?”

Luke 18:10-14 subtly asks this same question but in regards to how we posture ourselves before God and our fellow man.  It’s the familiar parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. 

In my most recent readings of the text, there are two things that strike at me the most.  One, is the difference in the posture of both of these men in prayer.  The Pharisee stands up to pray in the Temple.  Before we judge too quickly, it must be known that it was the tradition to stand in prayer with outstretched arms and looking up to heaven.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.  That’s not the posture I’m talking about.  The heart has a posture.  Jesus has entered into this parable for a good reason.  There were those in the crowd who were making quick assumptions about a question Jesus had asked in verse eight: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  To those who were confident that they were the “yes” to this question Jesus tells the present parable.  He tells this parable to identify those who are the “yes.” 

Now, its not wrong to be the “yes.”  I want to be the yes.  The question is how do we become the yes.  The problem with Pharisees was the assumption that their moral living and adherence to all things Torah was the key to becoming the yes.  This is the assumption of the Pharisee in the parable who fasted 2x a week (well more than the 1x required by the Law – Day of Atonement) and he paid a tithe on everything he acquired (on the gross and not just the net!).  In addition he is not like these “other” people (i.e., robbers, thieves or even this tax collector).  The ironic statement in all of this is that he begins his prayer with an “I thank you God,” but by the time the reader hears his prayer one wonders what he was really thanking God for?  All he had succeeded in doing was voicing all of the great choices he had made in life and how he had not stooped to the level of the reprobates around him!  Why did God need to be thanked?  This guy doesn’t need any grace, he’s perfect already!

On the flip side, a tax collector has entered into the Temple to pray, knowing that his mere presence in the Temple would have been considered a disingenous act by those around him.  He is an object of scorn.  He has made a poor decision morally and socially to take up the career of tax collecting.  But he is a beaten man who does not presume to be the “yes” to anything.  He knows if he has any hope at all in this world it is contingent on the mercy of God.  So he refuses to look up to heaven.  While he may be standing he is not standing with outstretched arms (as was custom), but he beats his chest.  He takes himself only before God and petitions, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  Jesus tells the crowd, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.”

To consider our posture before God is essentially to ask the question, “What is the basis for our relationship with God?”  In our heart we must never forget that is always been and always will be the mercy of God that resides as the foundation for our relationship.  The Bible is littered with examples of the beaten, broken, immoral, drunkards, murdering, lying, lustful men and women who came to their senses and threw themselves on the mercy of God.  This encounter with God certainly changed the trajectory of their lives, shaping the decisions that they made going forward.  It would be ludicrous for us to believe that after the God encounter they would begin to believe that it was their moral virtue that was to be thanked for their status in God’s eyes.  God went after them in the pit of despair, finding them in the darkest corners of their lives.  If I know one thing at all its that what was needed to get me out of darkness is precisely what is needed to hold me close to him these 17 years later…HIS MERCY! 

If we are not a people whose posture leads us to see the mercy of God then we are indeed in a dangerous place.  The Pharisee needed the people he despised, particularly this tax collector, to be who he was.  (Read that sentence again.)  Essentially, his whole basis for finding favor with God was the spatial distance between him and “other” people.  What if everyone around him were morally upright?  What would he have had to say?  Since he knows no other way to perceive his relationship with God, I would imagine that this man would have worked to separate himself from the other “moral” people as well.  He would have found something to split hairs over that would have made his brand of righteousness superior to those around him.  Because he fails to understand that his relationship with God hinges on God’s mercy alone, it not only changes his posture before God, but his fellow man as well. 

I’m wondering, how is your posture today?  How are you defining what real relationship with God is all about?  Is it based on your worth?  I hope not.  I mean no offense, but you are pretty worthless when it comes to the price that was paid for your entrance into the presence of the King.  Let’s be a people who continually, always, only throw ourselves on the mercy of our Lord.

The Greatest Risk

Preaching on the Parable of the Talents this morning (Matthew 25).  In my studies I’ve been reminded that the greatest risk in life is to take no risk at all.  To allow God’s commission for how we share our lives to bow down at the throne of insecurity is the height of unfaithfulness.  When our fears trump God’s ability to sustain us on his mission for our lives, we have failed to grasp the full meaning of the Gospel. 

Unfortunately, if we take an honest look at the three servants in this parable, we share much in common with the servant who buried the Master’s property in the ground.  I used to think the servant did this b/c he was upset that he was only given one talent and the others had 2 and 5 (an assumption I made b/c of poor knowledge regarding Bible $$).  When I realized that the least of these had been given the equivalent of 20 year’s worth of a common man’s labor to invest with (talent=6000 denarii, a denarius=1 day’s labor, 6000 days=approx. 20 years work), it dawned on me that each in this story had been given a tremendous amount.  This is true of the disciple, isn’t it?  Some of us are certain to realize the gift we have been given more than others, but even if we realize a fraction of the gift…it is a large sum!  Just as the seed that dies and produces a crop 100 times that which was sown, those who invest this gift are sure to see a return (“to him who has will be given more”). 

If it is true that to him who has,more will be given…it is certainly true that if we do not invest the gift given to us by the Master that what we do have will be taken from us.  We should not be surprised by this.  It is impossible to know the Gift that has been given to us and to NOT re-invest in the world around us.  If we are not investing it in others through service, through our choices, through our speech, etc. etc., then it is as if we never had the gift to begin with…we have buried it in the ground.  Thus, we illustrate that we never knew the nature of the gift we received or the Nature of the One who Gave the Gift. 

Therefore, the Greatest Risk is to take no Risk at all.

Kingdom of Treasures and Pearls

As I sit here tidying up my thoughts for a sermon this morning I find myself reflecting on the complex simplicities of the message I am preaching.  The treasure discovered in a field and the pearl of great price in Matthew 13 have two common denominators:  #1 – The exceedingly great value of that which was discovered, and #2 – The radical response of the discoverer to obtain that which was discovered. 

The message is simple.  The application is complex.  The challenge in preaching this one for me is not in highlighting the value of life in the kingdom, but in the radical response required to experience life in the kingdom.  The treasure and the pearl are not enjoyed unless the discoverer liquidates all he has to purchase them.  What have you and I liquidated to enjoy life in the kingdom?  I’ve always softened the application of passages like these by saying that what God requires of me is to be in a state of readiness to give up my assets and, so far…he hasn’t asked me to give those up so I continue to enjoy life’s amenities.  I don’t have any trouble sleeping at night beneath that philosophy either. 

When I think about that application, I feel somewhat inept to the task of preaching on such radical discipleship.  Yet I also believe that if we reduce the application to the liquidation of material assets to purchase these treasures then we are missing the major point of the text.  First of all, life in the kingdom cannot be purchased.  These parables are not suggesting that it can; they are making the point that life in the kingdom is worth more than the sum of everything we have and it should be pursued with complete disregard to what it will cost us…for what it costs us does not compare with the riches that will be obtained by our entrance into Kingdom Life.  Secondly, if I judge my own discipleship in terms of the giving up of material wealth, then I am missing out on the best parts of my story…attributing little to no value to the trajectory of my life.  Let me explain.

I can’t stand before the diverse audience this morning and talk about the stuff I’ve given up.  There are folks in my audience who find themselves living on the streets, who are strung out on drugs, have no jobs, who don’t have a penny to their name.  I’m sure some of them might be inclined to look at me like Satan looked at Job:  he only serves God because God has blessed him so much (though I am by no means the wealthiest among our group!).  So how do I connect the message of these stories to those with and without in this life?  The chief principle must be that we become a people who allow NOTHING to get between us and life in the Kingdom!  With that in mind I may not be one who can describe himself as having sold all my possessions  in order to follow Jesus, but I can say with certitude that the trajectory of my spiritual journey is one in which I have let nothing keep me from following Jesus (not that my life is without stumbles…but the trajectory is towards Jesus).  If this were  not the path I was on, I would probably find myself in very difference circumstances this morning.  I would not be preaching.  I would not be living in California.  Would not know the love of a godly woman or my two beautiful girls.  If I had chose to live for myself in this life, I would have played baseball for a state college in Ohio after high school and who knows how my story would have unfolded from there.  But somewhere in my childhood and in my formative teenage years…I discovered a Pearl of Great Price…a Treasure of exceedingly great value…and my life has never been the same since. 

O Grace Beyond Compare…that I had eyes to see what so many others fail to grasp!

That’s My King

This video has been around for some time, but it’s always a great reminder of the greatness of our Savior.  Be encouraged!

Central Church Podcast

For all who might be interested (or even if it is only my dad; I’m cool with that)…I have posted a link to the right called “Central Church Podcast.”  I hope that this will be updated on a weekly basis with new sermons.  Right now the downloads through iTunes are around 40mb.  When I have more time on my hands, I’ll see if I can reformat future podcasts to shrink the file size down to around 15mb, which seems to be more of the norm on iTunes.

Anyway, I hope that you get some encouragement and/or discomfort from what you hear.  That’s our job right…to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? 

Grace and peace to you all.

- Doug Jr.  aka “The Journeyman”

What Language are we Speaking?

It has become increasingly obvious for me in these last days that our Christian communities are in dire need of some serious introspection about the nature and content of our ministry in the world.  In attempt to engage this discussion I am co-teaching a class entitled “The Acts of the Church for the 21st Century.”  Below is a description of the aim of this class.  I would appreciate your thoughts regarding this objective.  How needed is it?  How right or wrong is the direction?  If is it needed, have I idenitified the chief stumbling blocks facing our mission in the world? 

The Acts of the Church  for the 21^st Century

The book of Acts teaches us in principle what the natural response was for a community of people who were saved by Christ and who then allowed His Spirit to live and breathe through them.  The acts of the church in the 1^st century were the result of people being genuinely transformed by Christ.  It seems a bit odd for me to suggest that we need to teach the acts of the church…since the story that was told by Luke in Scripture was written by a people who genuinely accepted that they had played a crucial role in crucifying the Son of God and were overflowing with gratitude at the gift that was given to them by that very Son of God whom they had crucified.  To be generous after that point was not an aim or objective…it was almost involuntary…stemming from their new nature…the law of the Spirit of Life triumphing over the law of Sin and Death!

            Understanding the driving force behind the beautifully written story of the 1^st century Christians is vital to our unpacking how we are to write our story in the 21^st century.  The goal is certainly NOT to do everything the way they did.  Our goal IS to join the 1^st century Christians in principle.  This is the key to discovering the value of all Scripture…identifying first what it meant to the original audience (to the best of our ability) and then (and only then) moving towards what it means today.

            The reason why this study is so significant is b/c we have done a terrible job of putting into practice the principles of the 1^st century church.  Why do I believe that this is true?  Because we are not growing.  Every statistical angle we can look at shows that the church (at least in America) is shrinking even while the population is growing.  (We are not even holding on to our own kids.  The Christian Chronicle has been chronicling this decline for some time.) I believe that if we were living in accord with the Spirit of the 1^st century church that we would be growing.  I refuse to believe that the same Spirit that was at work in the 1^st century church…that the power that was on display when the Gospel was proclaimed in words and action…is any less powerful TODAY!  If we believe that the Word is unchanging, that God is just as powerful today as He was 2000 years ago…then what’s the alternative?  Who is the variable?  Hasn’t Satan gotten too strong for God’s message?  NO!  We are the variable.  We have been too preoccupied with self-sustaining behavior…walling ourselves off behind our buildings and church social clubs…“loving people” from a distance…that God’s Spirit has not had a chance to infect the lives of others.  What is there to witness (Acts 1:8) when we are not visible to the world? 

            Additionally, we are faced with the challenge of the stigma that has been cast on the Christian world by outsiders.  When we have come out from behind our walls…we have put a target on the back of the non-Christian.  Everything that we have done has been in order to accomplish two things.  The first and most pressing issue is that the world knows that we are Christians:  we condemn others for cussing in our presence…we make snap judgments about moral dilemmas…we share how we voted on Prop 8, etc.  Whether we verbally confess to it or not, the reason why we do these things is NOT for the benefit of those that we contact in the world…it is for OUR benefit…the security that comes from having well-defined boundaries between us and the world.  The second driving force has been to “Church” people.  We target people not to build genuine relationships with them, but to “church” them.  Personally, I think unchurched people should remain un-churched, but un-Jesused people definitely need Jesus-ed.  If that happens they will find the CHURCH (at least the church that I want to be a part of!)

            The goal of this class is to unchurch the churched and to begin to write a better story in the 21^st century, one that will allow the Spirit of Christ to become visible to the broader culture who sees no difference between Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha.  The key to this is not necessarily a case of changing the well-meaning of most Christians.  I believe our hearts are by and large in the right place.  However, we have been too deeply instructed by our church culture and the modern world to understand how to connect with the post-modern world of the 21^st century.  If we do not go through a process of de-construction…we may not see that our well-intentioned acts are actually having the reverse effect of our desires…we are driving away the very people that we long to draw near. 

            In addition to the book of Acts, we will be calling upon the works of David Kinnaman whose research is found in the book Unchristian, as well as Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus But Not the Church.  May we approach this study with humility and have an open heart to listen to the concerns of the world around us.  They are crying out for Jesus still.  Will we give them Jesus or church propaganda?

The Power of Hope (Illustrated)

The following video clip from Shawshank Redemption is a perfect complement to the power of hope in a person’s life.  Everyone who has this hope purifies himself.  In the words of Red…”Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin.”

Reading 1 John: “Everyone who has this hope”

Starting with a question:  What is it that you most admire about personhood of Jesus?  What is it about his character that draws you closer to him?  Is there something in Jesus that is lacking in your life…something that your heart yearns to be made manifest in your own life? 

If I were to answer this question today (and I’m sure my answers could change for every day of the year!), the first thing that comes to mind is in regards to how Jesus loved all people.  I relate well to the statement that Brennan Manning describes in The Ragamuffin Gospel where one professor is describing to another one major thing that in his mind sets Jesus apart from himself.  What he went on to describe was that when he (the professor) sees the crowds he is repulsed by them…but that when Jesus saw the crowds he loved them…and looked at them as sheep without a shepherd.  I confess, I don’t love the crowds very well.  Frankly, I find it most difficult to love the crowds that sit in the pews of our church buildings.  Still, I love that about Jesus…b/c I know that I could be one of those who are difficult to love at time.  If Jesus doesn’t love the crowds…where will I find his love?

I encourage us all to think about those traits that exist in Jesus where we find ourselves lacking and/or are traits that we long to characterize our lives.  I’m sure we don’t have to think long to discover that we find ourselves wanting Jesus’ faith, boldness, prayer-filled life, wisdom, knowledge of the Scriptures, compassion for others, missional vision, etc., etc., etc. 

The wonderful news that 1 John brings to us in the context of these thoughts is that in our current state (even though we are NOW children of God) what we will be has not yet been made known.  Then he follows it up with the greatest promise of Scripture…. “But we know that when He appears (Jesus) we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is!”  (1 John 3:2). 

I don’t think that John is telling us that we are not going to be able to discern one person from another when Jesus appears…that everyone is going to look physically like Jesus.  He is most definitely saying that the perfection we are striving for today will be ours when He appears, that the compassion we wish we showed today we will show when He appears, that our desire to be Holy as He is Holy today will be a reality when He appears, that the battles with sin & the world will be won and done with when He appears!  The list could go on and on, couldn’t it? 

Listen up, dear children!  If this is your hope in Christ…PURIFY YOURSELVES towards this goal.  LIVE LIKE THE ONE YOU ARE BECOMING…JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF!  Everyone who has this hope purifies himself…EVERYONE.  There is no option B for those who have the hope of these words…if this hope is in you…there will be a purification process…you WILL live like the one you are becoming.   Maybe we need to spend a little more time thinking about, meditating upon, rejoicing over our hope rather than what we don’t have or what we are unhappy with in this life.  John believes our HOPE to be a source of life for the child of God in this AGE…right NOW! 

So…what is it about Jesus that you long to have made complete in your life?  Christian, it will be so…when He appears! 

Reading 1 John – “Do Not Love the World”

Though I hope to backtrack and pick up on some earlier reflections in my study of 1 John, this week I am taking a look at 1 John 2:15-17 where the command is given not to love the world or anything therein.  This command is obviously directed towards a particular worldview that has captivated mankind through the influence of Satan and not directed towards a hatred of mankind or the physical universe.  These things are good (God created the world and called it “Good”; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” for it.)  The focus here is the hatred of that which is driving a wedge between God and man, namely, worldliness. 

The particular point that attracts my attention ahead of my sermon is in regards to the cliche that we are “in the world but not of the world.”  I guess I’ve grown to question everything in my life for the purpose of testing their validity…it especially draws my attention to question anything that has become a cliche b/c after a while cliches are passed on with so little thought we forget what we are saying or where it originated.  In the case of this cliche, I fear that our common interpretation of what this means has led us to a life of limited impact on the world we are living in.  Ironically, we can become an awful lot like the world we live in by trying too hard to be anti-world.  When what it means to be a Christian in the world is boiled down to self-preservation through disconnectedness…we essentially become the religious version of a worldly person. 

Does that make sense?  Let me try and make myself a bit clearer.  People in the world are accustomed to “looking out for number 1.”  What are we really doing differently if our main concern is our identity apart from the world and are main concern is not the people we are trying to influence?  If our identity is our focus we are essentially looking out for number 1.  If, however, we focus on what is best for those who do not know Christ, how would we then engage the world?  Where would we find ourselves?  How transparent would we let ourselves get with the world?  Would we admit struggles with addiction so that the healing we received in Christ would become available to those currently battling addiction?  Would we enter into the bars to listen to the heartache/loss of people who have found no other way to cope with their emotions?  Would we hug the homosexual or cry tears with the AIDS patient?  Would we risk being called “a friend of sinners” and perhaps ruin our image as a “Christian” in order to redeem others from a wasted life?

If our cliche is keeping us from looking like Christ in the world, then maybe we better stop using it.  What would serve us better?  Perhaps we need to adopt something like “We are a people who live in the world, w/out being overcome by worldliness.”  If refusing to be ”of the world” separates us from those that are in the world, then the Kingdom’s growth will be stunted by our failed efforts.  I hope that is something in which we will refuse to participate.  Jesus expressed the idea of a church on the offensive…something that the Gates of Hades could not withstand.  It seems to me most of our churches are living on the defensive and haven’t ever seen the Gates of Hades for being too far away from them.  It’s time for a changing mission, don’t you think?

Reading 1 John – “That you may KNOW”

About a month ago I started a series of sermons on 1 John.  Earlier in the year we surveyed the miraculous signs in the Gospel of John with a particular emphasis on John 20:31 where John puts forth his thesis for writing…that “these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.”  It doesn’t take too long to see that 1 John shares a very similar thesis with one slight (but significant) modification.  In 1 John 5:13 the thesis is put forth like this:  “I write this to you who believe so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Did you catch the difference?  These are a people who BELIEVE already.  John writes His Gospel to promote the believing…but he writes this exhortation to those who already believe but are apparently struggling with the conviction/knowledge that they have eternal life as a result of that belief. 

There are a couple of issues at stake in KNOWing that we have eternal life.  One has to do with the social background of 1 John and the antichrists that had gone out from the churches in Asia b/c they had received a higher knowledge (the grassroots of Gnosticism…in the late 1st century it was Docetism).  I’m not concerned about that in this post, however.  The other issue has to do with how John links KNOWing (used some 37 times in this book) with action.

For John, the manner in which his thesis holds true for the believers is in the transformation that they have experienced as a result of the Spirit of Christ living in their lives.  John will write things like,  “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands,” or, “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”  These kinds of statements are littered throughout John. 

What do you think about these statements?  If John is writing to convict us of eternal life that is within our possession, what do you think about how he ties this to our obedience to Christ’s commands, to our walking as Jesus walked, to our loving our brothers, etc.?   I don’t think there is any doubt that John is trying to encourage the believers who heard this word, but it is not just about having an easy conviction of our eternal destiny.  John does not let them off the hook that quickly…NO, for John it is about transformation.  If our lives are planted in the love of Christ there is going to be evidence of the fruit of eternal life in our lives.  We can’t help it, can we?  I mean, if the spirit of Christ is truly taking hold how can we hate our brothers?  How can we walk in the darkness or love the world? 

When I read John’s logic in this exhortation, I know that it is right.  The signs of life must be seen to truly KNOW that we have eternal life.  Though that is encouraging to me (on my good days;)), it offers a challenge that I had never fully appreciated in prior readings of 1 John.  If we are to be convicted, truly convicted, of our eternal destiny…John makes it clear that there will be evidence of eternal life in our present journey.  What kind of challenge(s) does that present to you?