Ballons Pop

       Balloons!  The joy and laughter that can fill a child at the sight of balloons is remarkable!  Big ones, small one's, ones shaped like hats, hearts, ninja turtles, swords, water filled balloons, or the simple round balloon!  A couple weeks ago had the opportunity to go with my kids to see "Mr. Twister:  The Balloon Guy!"  Leaving the show with a balloon hat brought joy and excitement to all five of my kids that within 60 seconds came crumbling down for one of them.  As Ty, my three year old, was walking back to the van filled with joy and excitement playing with his balloon hat he accidentally rubbed it agains the brick exterior of the building and POP!  Every parent knows what is coming next...  Yep, the tears!  The passionate tears of sadness and disappointment combined with a three year old who was quickly approaching his nap time resulted in a couple minutes of an inconsolable little boy whose balloon popped.  While life eventually moved on and his balloon was eventually forgotten about and the rest of the balloons popped, deflated, or were simply forgotten about as they moved onto the next big thing I was struck with the thought of how foolish it is to put one's hope and joy in a balloon.  They are fickle, they are temporary, they face numerous dangers, and they are guaranteed to not last forever.  They pop, they deflate, they can float off into the sky when the string slips through a child's hand, they are popped or destroyed by others.  It is foolish to put our hope and joy in balloons but I wonder how many balloons you and I put our hope and joy in.  Not literal balloons, but none the less things that like balloons prove to be temporary, fickle, guaranteed not to last, are surrounded by numerous dangers, any one of which could make them go "POP" and so goes our hope and joy.  

       What is your hope and joy in today?  What is my hope and joy in today?  It is futile to put our hope and joy in balloons.  So let's stop doing that.  Instead let's fix our hope and joy on Jesus Christ alone.  Our only Hope.  Our Only Joy.  Our Only Guaranteed to never die HOPE and JOY that we have is in Jesus Christ.  Praying the prayer that Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus for you and me.... Ephesians 1:18, "Having your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the HOPE to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great."  Balloons pop-  Let's stop putting our hope and joy in them.

Stop trying to change the world!

       Change the world.
       Leave a mark.
       Leave a legacy.
       Make A difference.
       Be a World Changer.
       Be a history maker.
       Make your life count.
       Make a lasting impression
       Be the generation that changes things.
       Change a life
       Rescue a life
       End poverty
       End sex trafficking
       End domestic abuse
       End _______________

   
       It all sounds good doesn't it.  It all sounds really, really, good, and it speaks to us at a deep level.  We want to change the world, we want to leave a mark, we want to be a history maker, we want to be a part of ending slavery, poverty, sex trafficking, domestic abuse.  Who wouldn't want to be apart of providing homes for orphaned kids all across the globe.  All of the rhetoric above seems to be common place within western evangelical Christianity and especially in ministry towards youth and young adults.  I have used the above phrases numerous times with various groups of people.  I have taken students on multiple short term mission trips with a great organization called, "World Changers" where the first day of the trip we learn the theme song...
"You can be a world changer.
Shinning your light for those in danger.
Sharing the love of our Lord and Savior.
You can change the world.
Go out and change the world."
       However, the more I think about this common rhetoric the more I see several dangers.
First, it is easy to picture ourselves as the hero, the godsend, the rescuer, the one who is going to sweep in and save the day.  As that thinking seeps into our minds we lose sight of the Gospel, we lose sight of Jesus, we lose sight of the Biblical truth that we are not the hero's, the godsends, the rescuers.  Instead we are the ones who need a hero, who need a godsend, who need to be rescued and Jesus alone is the God-send, the hero, the rescuer who swept in and saved the day.  As we forget who the only hero is we tend to over-emphasize our ability to make a change and under emphasize our desperate need upon God to change people's lives.
        Secondly, the above language has the ability to downplay the importance of everyday faithfulness to God in the mundane, routine, ordinary tasks of life.  The vast majority of our lives our not lived in the "world changing, history making, ending sex trafficking realm."  The vast majority of our lives are spent in the ordinary tasks of life.  You will spend countless hours at work during your life and most people cannot easily connect how their day to day work is "world changing" in our common understanding of the phrase.  However, if we understand that we have not been called to be world changers but instead we have been called to be faithful it changes how we go about work.  Faithfulness to God in work comes through doing our work in order to serve and bring glory to God, and doing our work to serve our neighbors.  This shift from "world changer" to faithfully following Christ not only applies to work but to every area of life.  It applies to marriage, parenting, being a neighbor, and being apart of the local body of believers.  It applies to mowing, doing laundry, making dinner, changing diapers, and washing dishes.  We must be careful to not speak in such a way that the vast majority of our life is seen as unimportant, because in every area of our life God desires us to be faithful to Him, to serve Him, and to bring glory to Him.  It is also in the mundane areas of life that God desires to use to make us more and more into the image of His Son Jesus Christ.  If we don't emphasize faithfulness to God in all of life we will send countless people running from "high to high" of Christian world changing activities and all the while missing out on the countless daily opportunities to bring glory to God when we are faithful in the small, ordinary, mundane things in life.
       Lastly, the above language undermines what we have been most called to.... and that is to know Jesus Christ.  We have been called to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  We have been called to know Him, Love Him, to be like Him.  Our calling first and foremost is to a person, it is to a relationship, it is to our savior Jesus Christ.  That is our calling first and foremost to Jesus and everything we are called to be and do is the result of that relationship.  We are called to be salt and light but our salt and light is a result of us being in a relationship with Jesus.
        We are not called to change the world.... we are called to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  To love Him, to serve Him, to bring glory to Him.  We are called to be faithful.  We are called to love our neighbor.  As you pursue Christ, as you bring glory to Him, as you serve Him, as you strive for faithfulness in the big and the small, and as you love your neighbor you just might find the world around you changing because you are in a relationship with the one who changes people's world.

Not even sure what title to give this one....

       A while back on a Sunday evening I was sitting in my comfortable recliner, in my comfortable house, scrolling through my twitter feed on my iPhone 5 when the news of 21 Christians being beheaded comes across the feed and as I read more and learn more about what happened I was saddened, I was hurt, I was broken-hearted for what had happened, and I prayed...

      Than an hour later I was eating a DQ blizzard in my comfortable recliner, in my comfortable house, with my wife and my parents.  The next day my life goes on filled with comforts and relative ease.  It doesn't seem right.  It seems shallow.  It seems costless.  It seems unfair.  Where is my persecution?  Where are the ones who are going to hate me?  Where is my cost?  Where is my sacrifice?  How do I harmonize that my brothers and sisters in Christ are being martyred, beheaded, persecuted, and hated around the world, and I am eating a blizzard?  Saying a quick prayer for my persecuted brothers and sisters seems shallow, giving 10% of my absurd amount of wealth seems shallow, being a nice person and maybe occasionally sharing Jesus seems shallow.  All the phrases and quotes that those of us who are Christians in America who are privileged, filthy rich, and have filled our lives with comfort and entertainment, seem offensive.  

       I'm restless.  I'm confused.  I'm processing.  I'm divided.  I'm torn.  I'm discontent.

What Taco John's can teach the church

           Last Thursday an article and picture were put in the local paper here in Brookings, SD introducing myself as the new pastor at Bethel Baptist Church and inviting the community to the installation service this past Sunday.  When I came to work on Tuesday I found an envelope in my box from Taco Johns, and here is what was in it...

             It was simple.  It wasn't elaborate.  It wasn't extremely costly or difficult.  In spite of that.... it left a really good impression (and soon to be a yummy impression too!) Sometimes we get too caught up in wanting to do "big" things for God and miss out on countless daily opportunities to do things that are simple and easy BUT leave a good impression!  Yes, we will be called as followers of Christ to also do hard things where we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow but let us not miss out on the everyday opportunities to leave a really good impression.  Are we so focused on trying to hit a home run that we miss out on opportunities to lay down a bunt and advance the runner?  Our Gospel proclamation can never be only "good deeds" but our good deeds should be plentiful as we strive to leave good impressions that will make speaking the Gospel in our communities more impactful!

             What can you do in your neighborhood, work-place, local store, and community in order to leave a really good impression of the Gospel?  Now go do it!  

Gospel and loving our enemies

       As we continue to look at how knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel helps us to live out the life Jesus calls us to live we are going to look at the command to love our enemies.  Matthew 5:43-44, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbors and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."  We are commanded by Jesus to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  That kind of love is not our natural response.  We don't naturally love our enemies.  We don't naturally pray for those who persecute us, but that is what Jesus is calling His followers to do.  

       How does knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel help us to love our enemies?  The Gospel tells us that because of our sin we are God's enemies.  Romans 5:10, "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of Son, much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life."  Do you see what Paul is saying here?  He is talking to Christians and reminding them that before they were reconciled to God they were enemies of God.  That doesn't get talked about a lot today.  It doesn't feel very good to be told that unless we have put our faith in Jesus we are actually enemies of God.  However, that is what the Gospel proclaims. It proclaims that we who were once enemies have been reconciled to God by Jesus and that is GOOD news!  We like to think that before Jesus we were pretty good people, but that is not what the Bible says.  The Bible says that we were enemies with God and anyone who is an enemy of the God of the universe is not a pretty good person.  That is a person who is in desperate need to be restored and reconciled to God and that is exactly what Jesus did when He took the punishment, death, and wrath upon Himself that you and I deserved because we were the ones who were God's enemies, not Jesus.  

       Friend, that is the Gospel and that is indeed God news.  Do you see how this connects to loving our enemies?  The Gospel shows us how the God of the universe was able to love and reconcile us while we were His enemies and that should be our motivation for loving our enemies.  Loving our enemies is doing exactly what God did for us.  The more we realize the desperate state that we were in before Jesus the more willing we will be to offer that same kind of love, grace, and mercy to others that God offered to us.  You don't have the capacity to love this way in and of yourself but that is exactly why God gave us the Holy Spirit so that we would have God's love dwelling within to give to others.  Knowing, grasping, and cherishing the Gospel helps us to love our enemies.

Gospel and living a life of gratitude.

   It is so easy to complain and honestly I am pretty good at it!  Most of us seem to be pretty good at complaining and do not find difficulty in finding multiple things every single day to complain about.  However, as followers of Jesus it is very clear that we are not to complain.  Philippians 2:14 states, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world."  Do all things without grumbling.  That is hard, really hard, but it is what we are called to do!  Did you see what this verse says will happen if we do all things without grumbling or disputing?  You will shine as light in the world!  Why?  Because everyone is complaining and grumbling all the time!  

 We are looking at why it is so important to get the Gospel right because when we get the Gospel right it helps us live out the radical life that we are called to live, and living a life without grumbling and arguing is a radical life.  Instead of complaining we have been called to live a life of thankfulness, Ephesians 5:20, "Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. "  So how does the Gospel help us move away from a life of complaining to a life of thankfulness?  

In the Gospel we see grace; incredible, amazing, astounding, incomprehensible, undeserved, unearned, grace!  The Gospel tells us that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to restore our relationship with God.  Nothing.  We can't be good enough, we can't go to church enough, we can't read our bibles enough, we can't pray enough, we can't tell enough people about Jesus.  There is nothing we can do to restore our relationship with God.  We broke the relationship through our sin and we are powerless to restore it.  That is a pretty helpless place to be.  It is our fault that it is broken and we can do nothing to fix it.  Here is where the Gospel enters in.  God did for you what you could not do for yourself.  God restored the broken relationship by sending Jesus to die in your place, in my place!  That is incredible!  Not because you are good, or deserving, or worthy, but because He LOVES YOU!  WOW!  Let that sink in and I guarantee you the more you grasp what God has done for you the more gratitude and thankfulness will come bubbling up from deep within you and overflow into the life that you live day by day.  

So what do we do when we catch ourselves in those complaining moods?  Tell ourselves the Gospel message.  Tell ourselves what Jesus did for us.  Tell ourselves how God restored the relationship that we broke and that we could not fix and don't stop preaching the Gospel to yourself until gratitude and thankfulness begin to take over the complaining and grumbling spirit that you found yourself in.  

Why we have to get the Gospel right

       We HAVE to get the Gospel right.  What is the "Gospel" that we have to get right?  It is the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord!  The Gospel is Jesus in our place.  The Gospel is Jesus taking on Himself the punishment, death, wrath, and consequences that you and I deserved.  The Gospel is God's grace given to us which is wholly underserved.  That is the Gospel that we have to get right!  We have to get it right because it is the only way by which we can be saved.  We have to get it right because it is the only way that others can be saved.  We have to get it right because in coming to grasp, know, and cherish the Gospel more and more we find the power to live rightly!
        After a person puts their faith in Jesus we are called to live a life that is very much counter cultural.  We are called to live a life that goes against the flow of our culture, and if we are honest goes against our natural tendencies and desires.  Think about some of the crazy demands that Scripture calls us to; deny yourself, forgive everyone, LOVE your enemies, store up your treasure in heaven, take care of the least of these, consider others above yourself, love the hard to love, be content in ALL circumstances, live in a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.  We could go on for awhile listing the way in which we are called to live as followers of Jesus but that list should be sufficient to remind of us the counter-cultural way we are called to live.  I would argue that our failure to live the way we are called to live is in-part connected with our failure to cheerish, know, and grasp the Gospel.
         Over the course of the next several posts I want to demonstrate how grasping, knowing, and cherishing the Gospel more and more gives us the ability to live out the calling that God has on our lives more and more.  In order to do this we will look specifically at the following in light of the Gospel; forgiveness, loving those who are hard to love, denying self, and living a life of gratitude.  My prayer is that as we journey through these specific examples we will see more clearly than ever before why we need to grasp, cherish, and know the Gospel.