God Moves In Mysterious Ways

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From they hymn by William Cowper:

God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs, and works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace
Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.

You Love Yourself Enough Already

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The following is an excerpt from “When People Are Big and God is Small” by Dr. Ed Welch.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 19:19

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is considered the Biblical proof-text (for those who need one). When interpreted through cultural spectacles, this verse means that we must love ourselves in order to love other people. But in reality, the passage doesn’t even suggest such an interpretation. Jesus spoke these words to a rich young man who clearly loved himself and his possessions too much. There is only one command in the passage and it is “love your neighbor.” Nobody, including the writers of scripture, could have dreamed that this passage taught self-love. It took some cultural changes to reinterpret it and turn our eyes inward.

The Bible assumes that we have more than enough self-concern. We dress ourselves. We get depressed when things don’t go our way. We can be consumed with what someone thinks about us. But cultural assumptions have blinded us. We no longer see the smog we live in. So pastors of many growing churches preach almost weekly about healthy self-esteem, as if it were taught on every page of scripture. Too many Christians never see that self-love comes out of a culture that prizes the individual over the community and then reads that basic principle into the pages of scripture. The Bible, however, rightly understood, asks the question, “why are you so concerned about yourself?” Furthermore, it indicates that our culture’s proposed cure – increased self-love – is actually the disease. If we fail to recognize the reality and depth of our sin problem, God will become less important and people will become more important.

New Series: Seven Thoughts

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I’m not very good at blogging.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy it. It’s not that I don’t think I’m a decent writer. It’s not even that I don’t think I have something valuable to say. Simply put, it’s that I’m not very good at sitting down and writing a blog post.

There are several factors at work here. First of all, the nature of my work is such that I sit at a computer for most of my day with a lot of that time spent writing: emails, communications, curriculum, etc. Second, I am in school. As I write this, I have two five-page papers due at the end of the month. I’ve written almost one hundred pages of content so far this school year. When I have an idea for a blog post, I immediately think of all the other content that I should be generating for classes. Lastly, I tend to overdo it when it comes to my blog posts. I have a difficult time being brief, outlining my primary points, and sticking to a simple model. Because I’m a teacher, I often fall into the trap of trying to say everything there is to say about a particular subject instead of doing a cursory overview. I want people to think deeply, but that limits my ability to write a blog post because each one turns into a tome.

The other day I had an idea. What if, instead of writing every blog as an exhaustive treatment of a subject, I simply forced myself to jot down my initial thoughts regarding a topic? The idea hit me to try to limit myself to seven brief thoughts. That seems doable. Seven is enough to allow me to approach the subject from a number of angles, but not so many that I turn it into a treatise. It’s challenging for me and hopefully beneficial for you.

I already have several Seven Thoughts topics drafted with the first coming out tomorrow: Seven Thoughts: Treyvon Martin and Racism (I know, start with an easy one, right?) I’m hoping that this new approach will help me feel inspired to blog more and that each post forces me to think creatively about how to quickly shape my thoughts into something coherent. If you have any suggestions for topics, I’d love to hear them too.

In Honor of My Grandfather

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My grandfather passed away this morning. He was 82.

When I was young, both my parents worked and I spent every day at his house. I helped him mow and water the lawn, pull up carrots from the garden, played tennis with him on his tennis court in the back yard, and took naps in the guest apartment.

My grandpa taught me how to read. It was Dr. Seuss’ “Hop on Pop.” I’ve since moved on to much more difficult reading and I owe that foundation to him.

My grandpa taught me how to ride a bike, something that I don’t do enough these days. In the last few months, as I taught my kids to ride without training wheels, I have thought back on those times.

My grandpa taught me to love sports. My dad was never really into sports, but my Grandpa forced me to watch Cubs baseball with him on TV. When I was a tween, he took me to some spring training games in Arizona. When I was a newlywed and my wife surprised me with tickets to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, guess who was the first person that I called with the news (at 6am, I think).

My grandpa took me to Hawaii and Disneyland when I was a little kid. My parents didn’t have any money and I was the first grandkid, so I got spoiled rotten. I just took my kids to Disneyland for the first time over Christmas and reflected fondly over those memories.

He even took me to a church with a hymnal – what a weird experience for a young charismatic kid. “What do you mean you don’t have a drummer for your worship service? What’s with all this call-and-response stuff?”

When I was a teenager, he took me on rollercoasters. My dad gets badly motion sick and my mom was a chicken, so my 70-year old grandpa went on the loop-the-loops with me.

He was an extremely hard worker, a tough man who spent over 50 harsh winters in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was a businessman, an entrepreneur, a husband (of almost 60 years), and a father. However, the role I think he filled the best was grandpa. I miss you.

This picture was about 6 years ago when Mackenzie was a baby. No matter what was going on, Grandpa would always take time to play with his grandkids and great-grandkids.

Ephesians 5:33 Let the wife see that she respects her husband.

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I recently had an opportunity to speak on the subject of respect and thought I would post a blog version of what I shared.

I have typically found it easy to respect my husband, at least what I thought respect looked like. He is the oldest child from a Christian family. He got involved in ministry at a young age, playing music in church starting at the age of 8, and eventually becoming a pastor. He is a natural born leader. People easily follow and respect him.

I, on the other hand, was the only child of very dysfunctional parents. I often had to act like a little adult, taking care of myself in some ways, and being exposed to things that required more maturity than most young children have. I guess that some girls may have gotten use to that kind of self-reliance and found it difficult to submit to their husbands. For me, when people talked about submission in church, it sounded like a dream. Meeting someone who had an even stronger personality than myself was like a wave of relief. To have someone take care of me, to rely on someone other than myself?! As you can imagine, this dynamic had its own set of issues. Recently, while reading Real Marriage, by Mark & Grace Driscoll, I could see that I had been what they called the compliant wife, supporting everything my husband said and did without question, but that kind of blind submission isn’t real respect. When I was young in my marriage I made an idol of my husband. I feared confrontation, wanting to avoid Aaron’s disappointment or rejection because I had made him my savior.  I am glad to be able to say that a few years into our marriage, God removed Aaron from that pedestal, and restored Himself to that rightful place. That was a difficult and painful process, because it involved me realizing that Aaron was a sinful human and would inevitably let me down, but it was vital in getting my priorities straight so that my relationship with God would come first and my relationship with my husband second. It works so much better that way!

Since that time, the holy spirit has helped me to become much better at sharing my feelings, concerns and corrections with Aaron. When I am tempted to fall back into my habits of avoiding confrontation at all costs, I have to pray for God to give me a humble boldness. I do well to remind myself that withholding the input my husband needs from me is not respectful.

Not all women are overly compliant. Some of us tend to be more contentious. There are plenty of Proverbs about this. My favorite is “A continual dripping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.” Matt Chandler paraphrases this verse saying, “Your husband is literally being water boarded by you!” Some women are obvious about this, they are in your face, opinionated and pushy. If you often find yourself thinking that the way other people do things is foolish, or criticize people for thinking or doing things differently than you, you may be contentious. Still, some women are more subtle in their disrespect. One woman I used to know was less obvious about it. She and her husband were involved in music ministry together. He served frequently, with the heart of a deacon, and involved his wife and son in the things he was doing. Still she regularly complained that she wished her husband would really be the spiritual leader of their family. She would push him and nag him to lead devotion times, attempting to take control of the situation herself with these really specific expectations. From the vantage point of others, her husband was trying to lead their family. Unfortunately, she just refused to trust him with that leadership. While the underlying issue of the overly compliant wife may be idolatry or fear of man, the underlying issue of the contentious wife is usually distrust.

I could go into why this is, but I think most will be able to pretty easily link some life experiences to why you are reluctant to trust your husband, or why you are prone to avoid confrontation because of a fear of man.

The point is, whether you tend to be more compliant or more contentious, we all find it difficult to show respect at times. So what do we do? Well usually, we run to the next “7 steps to becoming a respectful wife” the next book, program, formula that tells us something like “If I show him the respect he desires then he’ll meet my needs and love me in the the way that I desire.” Our sinful hearts love formulas because they make us feel like we have control. But ultimately, formulas fail. Life is not a math problem. Formulas set us up with expectations, and when our expectations aren’t met we become resentful.

The truth is, I am at my best and most respectful as a wife, not when I’m following a formula, but when I am fully focused on the gospel. When I am remembering that because of no act of my own, nothing I can do, that it is simply because God is merciful and gracious that he loves me and sent his son to die for me! He saw me in danger of death and hell and intervened. Though I have failed to speak into my husband’s life and help him in the ways that only I can, Jesus stepped up and brought grace and truth to me in the way that only he can! Unlike a woman who struggles to respect her husband because she deems him undeserving, Jesus has not withheld his love and salvation because we are undeserving. In fact, we are more than undeserving and he died for us still!  When I’m remembering the truth of the gospel, love and respect and graciousness overflows, onto my relationship with my husband because of the gracious way that Christ has dealt with me.

Why Christian Community?

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If you’re a part of a church, you’ve probably at some point been asked to be a part of a small group of some sort. No doubt you’ve heard some reasons given as to why this is a good idea: it will make a big church feel smaller, it will keep people from leaving through the “back door,” it’s where people can develop genuine friendships, it’s where pastoral care can take place. While these are all good and legitimate reasons, I think it completely misses the boat when it comes to the reason why Christian community exists in the first place.

Foundation #1: Trinity

The theological foundation for Christian community is rooted and grounded in the understanding of God as Trinity. The historical, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Godhead have always existed in perfect relationship and community. The Bible also teaches that human beings are unique in all of God’s creation in that we were made in the image and likeness of God. There are different aspects as to what “created in the image of God” means, but it certainly includes the idea that God intended for human beings to exist in relational community as he does. Because we bear God’s image, human beings desire - at the deepest level - relationship and community.

Foundation #2: Christ’s Reconciling Work

Because of sin, relationship is breached. In the garden, after Adam and Eve had eaten from the fruit, God asked a very insightful question: “where are you?” God did not ask this question because he was genuinely unaware of their location; he asked it to illustrate the point that sin fractures relationship. Relationship with God is broken and relationship between people is broken. However, the cross of Jesus Christ changes everything. God the Father sent God the Son on a rescue mission to the earth to reconcile guilty sinners to himself. However, the implications of the cross don’t just end at a restored relationship with God – as incredible as that is by itself! God included in his plan of redemption the possibility for sinners to be reconciled with one another. Here are two passages of scripture that illustrate this point:

  • But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. - 1 Peter 2:9-10
  • But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. - 1 John 1:7

Only after we understand community as being rooted in God’s Trinitarian nature and the cross of Jesus Christ can we begin to understand what God’s purposes for community are.

Purposes For Community

There are three main functions and purposes of gospel community:

1. Discipleship. In Matthew 28:19, we see that Jesus gave his church the responsibility of making disciples. A mature disciple of Jesus is someone whose identity is rooted in God, who reflects God’s glory back to him in worship, who shows God’s love to other Christians in community, and who lives on mission to show God’s glory to a lost and unbelieving world.

2. Care. Throughout the New Testament, we see a picture of God’s people caring with one another, carrying each other’s burdens and sharing in each other’s joy. In Ephesians 4:2-3, Paul says that we are to bear “with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The church is intended by God to be a place where we receive his comfort and care.

3. Mission. God is still on mission in the earth, saving rebellious sinners and reconciling them to himself. For whatever mysterious reason, God has graciously chosen to use his people, the church, in this work of reconciliation. In 1 Peter 2:12, we see what the fruit of gospel-saturated community is: outsiders seeing our lives and being drawn to our Heavenly Father. We must never forget that mission is absolutely vital to a Christ-centered understanding of community.

I hope that you can experience the joy that comes from gospel community. It truly is a gift from a gracious God who delights in relationship.

Guest Post: Grace and Then Truth

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The following is a guest post that we written by my friend Daniel Delgado. He is currently pursuing a Master’s at Western Seminary. You can check out his blog at http://www.flathillfaith.com.

Repetition is a powerful tool. We repeat things that are important to us. We repeat things we want to remember. In fact, educational experts believe we must be exposed to something at least three times before we can fully understand it. This is why I’ve started highlighting key words in Bible passages I read. For example, in the first chapter of Genesis, God speaks 15 different times. This repetition subtly communicates to something significant about God’s character: namely, that our God is a God who speaks. Another example is found in 1 Samuel 8:10-18, when God-through-Samuel is describing what Israel’s king will be like, he uses the phrase “he will take” six times. Obviously, God wanted the Israelites to know that their king would take, take, take, take, take, and take some more.

In the first chapter of John, there are a handful of words that are repeated: Word, life, light, world, etc. Towards the end of this chapter, the Bible repeats two words that define Jesus’ ministry. In John 1:14, we read that we have seen Jesus’ glory, which was full of grace and truth. A few verses later, in John 1:17, we read that Moses brought the Law, but through Jesus came grace and truth. Jesus revealed His glory to us through grace and truth. In fact, the original Greek for verse 17 literally says that Jesus brought “the grace and the truth.” In Greek, word order is important and I think it’s worth noticing that both times, grace comes before truth. I think there’s profound significance to that word order. Grace must precede truth.

I’ve met a handful of people who seem to think that the most graceful thing we can do is be truthful (i.e. brutally honest), as though the two terms were synonymous. But why then, would the Bible use these terms separately? I’ve been reminded by people in this camp that Jesus was no ballerina. While this is true, it’s also true that Jesus was not a knuckle-dragging ogre who went from village to village bashing people with a club named “Truth.”

But I’ve also met people who stand by the conviction that all that matters is grace. The only thing that matters, they would say, is the grace that God gives us. But why would this Bible passage connect truth to the reality that Jesus brought grace? Can we honor God if we’re only graceful, but not truthful? If people do not understand the truth about their situation, will they even appreciate God’s grace?

And so we find a complex balancing act between grace and truth. Sam Williams once wrote that “Grace without truth is sentimentalism. It lacks power. Truth without grace is legalism. It lacks compassion. Grace and truth is the power of God that transforms lives.” As I said before, I think there is significance to the order of grace and truth. In fact, I think we need to encounter people with grace and then truth…in that order!

Take a look at how Jesus approached the woman at the well in John 4. Jesus offers her living water and then confronts her about her promiscuous lifestyle. Grace and then truth. Go forward to Jesus’ encounter with the paralyzed man: Jesus heals him (John 5:8) and then calls him to repentance (John 5:14). Grace and then truth. Go forward to the statement Jesus makes to the woman caught in adultery: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” Grace and then truth.

I think this is the example we are meant to follow: Grace and then Truth. As a friend once told me, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. As Christians, we must resolve to enter into relationships that are characterized by grace. We must commit to love and accept others unconditionally in order to create a safe, trothing relationship. Then, when they’re ready, we can begin to share the wonderful, life-changing Truth that has set us free. Only after people feel loved and accepted by us will they be open to hearing what we believe.