Soma

As Brian posted a link to a post by Ray Ortlund yesterday, I thought I’d post another one today.

From a man who is older and wiser than I am, you should read his four reasons to be thankful and four concerns going into 2009.  Six of the eight ought to be rejoiced and headed by us.  The other two…well, maybe you should forward it to your parents.

Read it here: Going into 2009

…I thought that you might appreciate chewing on some words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I stumbled across these today in his book on Creation and the Fall.  Read it slowly, it’s worth the thought (I mean what else are you doing at work this week?)

The thing, the world, rules man.  Man is a prisoner, a slave of the world, and his rule is illusion.  Technology is the power with which the eart grips man and subdues him.  And because we rule no more, we lose the ground, and then the earth is no longer our eart, and then we become strangers on earth.

We do not rule because we do not receive our dominion as God-given but grasp it for ourselves. There is no “being-free-from” without “being-free-for”.  There is no dominion without serving God.  With the one, man necessarily loses the other.

Without God, without his brother, man loses the earth.  In his sentimental backing away from dominion over the earth man has always lost God and his brother.  God, our brother, and the earth belong together.  But for those who have lost the earth, for us men in the middle, there is no way back to the earth except the way to God and to our brother.

I couldn’t agree more with Brian’s encouragement to hold onto the spirit and message of Christmas, even after the 25th.

In this vein, I would encourage you to listen to an advent message by John Piper entitled Obedient Son, Ultimate Purifier, All-providing Bridegroom.  This was the message that Piper preached the weekend we were in Minneapolis, and I think it has some incredible truth that we all need to hear.

One of the most powerful points Piper makes is that the way we get to Christ is through faith, not through family.  While some may have really enjoyed the sweet celebration of Christmas and the joy of family, I know that time with family isn’t always the beautiful picture we hope it is.  For some of you, time with family is simply a reminder of how messed up your family is, how messed up your past was, and how lonely you sometimes feel.

If that’s you, Jesus has good news for you.  Your messed up family puts you at no disadvantage before Christ, for you come to Christ through faith not family.  But, hear it from Piper (he’s far more eloquent than I).

…you tell your wife that you’re not bringing any work with you on a five day Christmas vacation, and she tears up.

So, that goes for this blog as well…I’ll be back after January 1.

Merry Christmas!

I went to an incredible wedding this weekend.  It wasn’t the location that made it incredible, we were at a Rotary Lodge in the middle of nowhere, Iowa (although the snow was pretty sweet).  It wasn’t the hours and hours of planning that made it incredible, the wedding was planned in less than 3 months.  It wasn’t the astronomical budget that made it incredible, the couple kept things as absolutely simple as possible.  It wasn’t the decorations that made it incredible, although the ambiance of a fireplace was pretty sweet.  It wasn’t the pastor who made in incredible, even though I’m sure he’s a great guy.  It wasn’t the company that made it incredible, although I was there with some really fun people.  And it wasn’t even the couple that made it incredible, even though I feel like I have walked alongside them and was overjoyed at the victory that this moment represented.  What made this wedding so incredible, was that it was all about Jesus.

EVERYTHING was about Jesus.  The processional song was all about Jesus.  The welcome was about and towards Jesus.  The worship magnified Jesus.  The letters written the bride and groom wrote to each other were all about the work of Jesus.  The message was about the marriage of Jesus and the church.  The vows were shadows of the New Covenant of Jesus.  The pronouncement declared the work of Jesus.  The recessional was celebrating Jesus.  The toasts showed off Jesus.  The “thanks” were modeled after Jesus.  And that is exaclty what a wedding is supposed to be!

In our culture we repeat over and over and over again that weddings are for the bride…it’s her day.  And that is not completely wrong.  But ultimately, it’s not the bride’s day or the groom’s day.  And it’s definitely not the parents’ day.  It is Christ’s day.  It is a day and a celebration that He created to show off Himself, His love, and His passion to the world.  And last Saturday when Josh and Rochelle got married that is exactly what happened.

Spending the few hours we spent together at that celebration, I couldn’t help but be captivated by Christ’s love for us.  The passion, grace, forgiveness, love, longing, and joy in both Josh and Rochelle’s eyes taught me something more about how Christ feels about us.  I was reminded again that marriage was something that God created (before the fall) so that he might have some way to show us (by witness and by experinece) how madly, passionately, and selflessly He loves us.  It really is an incredible thing.

I love weddings.  I especially love weddings where Christ is magnified.  This weekend, as we drove away from Josh and Rochelle’s wedding (through the miles and miles of cornfields) I reallized that I was deeper in love with my Savior because of what I had witnessed.  This is not a completely foreign experience as it’s happened at weddings before.  And, I think that (in part) that’s the point.

Josh and Rochelle’s wedding was incredible.  We didn’t dance.  There was no recieving line.  We didn’t have dinner (it was a lunch reception).  There wasn’t even a large tiered cake.  But I walked away deeper in love with Jesus.  So, to my good friends, Josh and Rochelle (who are currently on their honeymoon in Montana where it is 30-degrees below zero), on behalf of all those who were able to share that day with you, “Thank you.  As imperfect and horribly flawed people you have experienced God’s amazing grace and extended that grace to us on your wedding day as we got to see in magnificent technicolor the beauty of Christ’s love and passion for His church.  May the same always be said of your marriage.”

I was reminded this weekend of the incredibly deep (and oftentimes painful) truth that forgiveness costs something.  Have you ever thought of that?  Have you ever realized that forgiveness not only cost Jesus something, but that forgiveness, by nature, always costs something?

Think about the forgiveness of a debt.  If you owe me $10,000 and I choose to forgive you the entire debt, you may think that this is exciting and freeing news.  You used to be $10,000 iin debt and now you owe nothing…you’re free!  But the truth is, someone has to absorb the $10,000.  If I forgive your debt, the truth is that it cost me $10,000 to do so.

Forgiveness from God works this way.  We could not be forgiven unless the penalty we deserve to pay was somehow paid for.  Forgiveness of our sins did not come free, it came at a price (a very steep price).  Our forgiveness cost God the blood of His own Son, it cost the Son enduring the wrath of the Father.

And forgiving each other isn’t any different.  We often times want to forgive others, but we don’t want it to cost anything.  We want to forgive, but we don’t want to be inconvenienced by it, we don’t want to still feel the effects of it, we don’t want it to hurt.  But, this is impossible.  Because forgiveness always costs something.  Forgiveness means letting go of what someone else owes us, and letting go of the wrong they have done to us.  This means never holding it agaisnt them, this means never making them feel guilty for it again, this means releasing them from the burden of the sin they have commited against us.  And that doesn’t come easy.  It means taking the pain of the offence on ourselves, it means absorbing the effects of a wrong someone else did, it means suffering because of something you didn’t have any control over, it means being like Christ.

Over the past five years of marriage I have seen a tendency in my life and my heart that I think is often times a piece of all of us.  Even if I say that I “forgive” someone, and will not hold their sin against them and will not make them bear the burden of it, I still am unwilling to take all the pain of the sin on myself.  And so I will try to subtly redistribute the pain by allowing (or making!) the other person to feel guilty for what they have done.  After all…it’s only fair…right?  But, forgiveness is not about being fair!  It wasn’t for Jesus and it isn’t for us!  Forgivness is about recognizing that sin costs something, and that as a fellow believer, it is not my job to insist that things be fair, but to insist that our relationship be reconciled even if it means bearing the brunt of the pain.  It may cost be dearly, but then again, forgiveness ALWAYS costs something.

Now, as a caveat, I would like to make perfectly clear that last Sunday Brian preached an incredible message on “Celebrating Work” that you really need to download if you haven’t heard.  That said…

I was significantly underwhelmed last Sunday morning.  After being out of the country for two weeks, there were two things that I was aching for: my family and the church (not to suggest that the church is not a family).

When I walked in the door, tired after 40 hours of travel, Harper jumped into my arms and squeezed me around my neck for what seemed like an incredibly sweet eternity.  I got to cuddle with Addison, and it was so…SO…sweet to see my wife again.  When I’m away from her for extended time like that, my heart seriously aches.

In addition, I recieved a number of text messages and phone calls from friends wishing me “welcome home.”  While the text messages were nice, I still really missed our church and all of the people there, and so I anxiously awaited Sunday (because of the holiday weekend…no one was really around) when I could also go “home.”  Saturday night and Sunday morning I was so excited to go “to church.”  Harper was excited as well, as all he could talk about was going to “my church.”  I will eventually let him in on the fact that it’s God’s church…but for a 2 year old, I’ll let his theologically incorrect semantics slide.

So, we got to church, set everything up, made sure everything was ready for the service, and after doing the “welcome” I sat down in one of the theatre seats and thought to myself “ahh…here we go…it’s so nice to be back with the church” (you may be able to see where this is going).  We sang, we worshiped, we listened to God’s Word, we responded, and then the service ended…and I thought to myself, “that’s weird, that wasn’t near as exciting an experience as I was expecting…in fact…I don’t feel any better…I still feel like I’m aching for “the church”…but I’m here!

You’d think, as a pastor, I’d be able to figure out what was going on at this point, but I didn’t.

As we all began to hang out afterward, and I began to catch up and talk with people I care so much about, and hear about their lives and their weeks and tell them about what God has been teaching me and how he has been challenging me, the “ache” began to melt.

As the week went on and I got to spend more and more time with the the people I love so much (the church), the ache melted more and more, and every time I sat down across a coffee table, a restaurant table, or an open space from someone the sensation was there: “ahhh…the church.”

I’m not sure what made me think that what I missed so much had to do with a Sunday morning.  All of my theology teaches the exact opposite.  And, I’m not sure what took me so long to realize that a church service was not what I was aching for.  I guess there are still parts of my heart and mind that need to be flushed of the old “go to church” idea of church.

But, as I’ve spent more and more time this week talking with many of you, emailing with many of you, and reconnecting with many of you, I cannot tell you how nice it has been to be back.  The feeling is not completely dissimilar to the one I got as Harper refused to let go of my neck.  Because, aside from my wife and kids, the thing that I missed more than anything while I was gone was not a building or a program or a service…I missed the church.

Now, when it comes to public criticism of other pastors I always error on the “keep my mouth” shut side because I know that people who I may have differences with are also sincere brothers and sisters who are laboring for the gospel just like we are.  However, sometimes there are circumstances that so blatantly defame the gospel and the glory of Christ’s bride, the church, that to stay silent would be abhorent.

I also think it is appropriate to address these “charges” because they have not been denied, but simply “addressed.”

Today, at the LA Times website, a story was posted explaining that:

The pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles apologized to his congregants Sunday for any embarrassment caused by disclosures that he had used church credit cards for sizable personal expenses and had failed to pay federal taxes for several years.

Pastor John J. Hunter, 51, used church credit cards to pay for at least $122,000 in personal expenses, including family vacations, clothes, jewelry, bikes and auto supplies, The Times reported Sunday…

…Hunter also told The Times that he is working with federal tax officials to repay back taxes, penalties and interest amassed over 17 years, which have resulted in federal tax liens of more than $309,000 against himself and his wife, Denise Brown Hunter.

So what happens when your pastor spends over a hundred grand of church money on himself and doesn’t pay his taxes?

He and church finance officials said he had signed an agreement to repay the money and instituted stricter accounting policies, such as spending guidelines and more frequent audits, to guard against future problems.

Guard against future problems?  Spending guidelines?  Are you kidding me?!  And the response from the congregation is even more vomit enducing (sorry…but when God’s bride is defamed in this kind of way, I believe that righteous anger is appropriate)!

“Am I disappointed that he used church credit cards for some personal expenses? The answer is obviously yes,” said Kerman Maddox, a longtime church member and Los Angeles public relations executive. “Am I happy he took responsibility for it? Absolutely.”

Maddox said the majority of church members supported Hunter and credited him with helping increase membership, among other things.

So, apparently, that’s that.  There’s no repercussions, other than needing to “pay the money back” (for comparrison, most of you know what Brian and I make…can you imagine how long it would take for us to pay back $122,000 + $309,000?)

Let me make this absolutely clear.  If I (or Brian, or any future pastor you have) spends even $122 of church money on vacations, jewelry, etc. here is exactly what you are to do:

Step 1: React in horror.

Step 2: Demand that we step down not only from the church we are currently at, but from pastoral ministry completely (at the very least for the forseeable future).

Step 3: Beg God for our souls (please!)

Think I’m being a little over zealous?  Here’s what God says:

1 Timothy 3:2-3 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

Titus 3:7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain,

James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

Matthew 6:19-24 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”