Pray for the Impossible

If we were honest, most of us would confess that our prayer life is not much more than updating God on the daily health and travel report. We tell Him who is sick, who is traveling and we pray for their physical safety. I believe that these should not be our greatest prayer concerns. In fact, I would argue that if these are your greatest requests before God, you have a misunderstood and shallow understanding of His miraculous Kingdom
There is a wonderful example of this in Mark 2 when some men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Unable to get into the packed house, the desperate men climb on to the roof, open it up and then lower their buddy in front of Christ. I can imagine the electricity in the air as everyone silently waited to see if Jesus would miraculously heal this man’s physical body. What happens next may surprise you, it certainly surprised the crowed. Jesus didn’t give the man power to walk, but rather turns to him and said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus gave this man what he most needed instead of what he most wanted. The crowed was disappointed, no one cheered, no one was amazed and no one praised God, rather they replied with skepticism and accusations. In order to silence the critics, Jesus confirmed God’s forgiveness by telling the man, “get up, take your mat and go home.” Mark then tells us that the paralyzed man, “got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God.” What is wrong with this picture? The crowed wanted, cheered for, was amazed at and praised God for the lesser miracle. They merely wanted the man to walk. In contrast, Jesus wanted the greater miracle, which was to forgive this man’s sins.
In my life I have experienced many of God’s extraordinary miracles and provisions, so many so that I couldn’t even start to list them. Yet as I reflect back on them, I truly believe that they all pale in comparison to the single greatest miracle I have experienced, which is the forgiveness of my sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. I am further amazed at the ongoing miraculous work of God as He continues to be faithful to forgive this stubborn, proud and arrogant saint, while all the while continuing His unceasing dedication to conform me into the image of Christ. What a patient, loving and miraculous God we have.
I want to encourage you to stop praying in the shallow end. Why would you merely ask God to give a person travel safety or good health if they are dead to God? By God’s grace, I pray that once again you will find urgency in praying for the impossible (Mk 10:27). Start praying for your neighbors, your family members, your co-workers, your friends and your enemies. Pray that they would receive the miraculous work of the cross and experience the forgiveness of sins from an almighty, loving and holy God. Finally, do not become complacent to the miraculous in your own life just because it is assured in your heart and commonplace among your friends. If God has given you the grace to place your trust in Jesus Christ, then He has pardoned your sin, freeing you from its bondage and penalty. Live afresh in the strength and joy of our Savior, who miraculously says to you, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
- Dan Jackson -

How bad is it?
Last night Tricia and I watched a “Christian” movie.  One of the major themes was that even though some people in the world are evil, people are basically good.  Sadly, I have allowed myself to be brainwashed with a surplus of Christian material that tells me that sin is not that big of an issue, that I’m basically good and capable of doing good apart from God.  We see such teaching in the vast majority of Christian resources for children, which merely encourage kids towards moralism, (i.e. be nice to your brother, share with friends, obey your parents etc.)  The residue of this belief can also be seen in Christian worship music in which we tell God all we are going to do for Him.  Even one of today’s most influential pastors, Rob Bell, explains in a video that God believes in us so much that He puts the fate of the church in our hands when Jesus says to the disciples, “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” (Matt 28:19.)  (Read v18, 20 to see his error)
What is wrong with this picture?  It is untrue.  In the biblical narrative, other than Jesus, God does not use moral and capable people, but rather sinful failures.  Among our heroes of the faith are Noah the drunkard, Abraham the liar, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, Peter the denier and Paul the genocider.  These descriptions typically are not given in children’s Bibles. However, the real Bibles tell us that we are sinful from conception, (Psalm 51:5), apart from God we are only evil all the time, (Gen 6:5), and if we claim to have no sin we make God out to be a liar, (1John 1:10.)  Do you make God out to be a liar?  There are indicators of such an arrogant heart, which I know from personal experience.

    Vagueness ~ You confess, “I am a sinner,” but don’t really believe it, you cannot describe particular sins to God, to yourself or to others.
    Apathy ~ You are indifferent towards a Savior because your sin is not that bad.
    Unforgiveness ~ You expect everyone to be perfect and understanding like you.
    Unconfession ~ You are not consistently asking your spouse or kids or parents to forgive you, because you are unaware of how you have ever sinned against them.
    Minimize ~ In prayer, (by yourself or with others), your list of confessions is much shorter than your lists of requests and praises.
    Consolidate ~ You unite all your sins into one particular sin that you struggle with.  Therefore, when you conquer that sin on a particular day you deceive yourself into thinking you have conquered all your sins.

I want to share something with you because I love you and because you will not hear this from any place other than from God’s Word.  No matter what the Christian movies, Christian music, Christian Children’s Bibles and Christian preachers tell you, your “sin problem” is much worse than you could ever possibly imagine.  Both your sins of commission, (doing what is prohibited by God), and omission, (not doing what is commanded by God,) are abhorrent to your heavenly Father.  Furthermore, your sins of commission and omission are found not only in what you do, but also in what you say and even in what you think.  Such an understanding should lead us to cry out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God- Through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:24-25.)
Your deepest need is not to act better, but to be forgiven.  Do co-workers, neighbors, friends and family perceive you merely as a good person, (like the Pharisees), or as a forgiven person who is broken by your sin and amazed by the unconditional love of God?  You can’t fake this, it must be genuine.  Hang out around those who see their own sins, pray diligently that God would show you more of your sins, confess your sins to others, (so they might share in your repentance,) and then confess your sins to God.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins”

Confronting the Bondage of Consumerism

Monday at Work

Last month I wrote on how the consumer driven culture we live in has influenced how we conduct ourselves on Sunday mornings. This month I want to look at the influence it has on Monday mornings when many of us head back into the work place after the weekend.
Let me start by asking you this question, “Why do you get up and go to work in the morning?” Chances are you have asked yourself this question at least once, if not every working morning of your life. Quickly I can think of two motivations you might have. One primary motivation may be to earn money. You want to provide for your family’s basic necessities as well as earn a cushion to allow for entertainment and recreation. Another primary motivation you may have for going to work is to find value for your life. You find a deep contentment for how your job helps or enhances the lives of other people.
While it is neither wrong to earn money, nor to help other people, if either of these are your primary motivation for going to work in the morning, then you are approaching your job as a consumer. In both cases, (and in many others), at the end of the day the truth is that you are working for your own benefit, so that you may either have riches or a feeling of value. Ironically, both of these motivations will at some point leave you disappointed. If you are working for riches, you will be dissatisfied when you lose money or don’t make enough of it. If you are working for a feeling of value, you will be dissatisfied when you are unable to help other people or when they don’t appreciate you.
Scripture gives us a superior motivation for getting up to go to work in the morning, which is simply this: to serve Jesus. Col 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. This verse tells us not to work for men who could only give us temporary riches and value, but rather that we should work for the Lord who has already given us riches and value in Himself at the Cross. As we read on in the passage, we also see that we are to serve Christ because He has promised us an inheritance as a reward: Col 3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Unlike the possibility of rewards we might or might not receive from an employer or a customer, this reward from God is guaranteed and therefore will never leave us disappointed.

Confronting the Bondage of Consumerism
According to the American Banker’s Association, the average family today carries $8,000 in credit card debt. While you may or may not personally carry any debt, such a number exposes the culture of American consumerism in which we live and are influenced by. Unfortunately, this consumer mentality overflows into our marriages, friendships and churches. We view these relationships merely as a means of pleasing ourselves, and when they fail to satisfy, they become disposable, or at least unworthy of our effort. We approach them with the mentality of, “What’s in it for me,” rather than, “What can I give.”
I want to look specifically at how our consumer-driven hearts affect our Sunday mornings experience at New Hope. One of the ugliest fruits of consumerism I see in my own heart is an attitude which is more concerned whether or not the service is pleasing to me, rather than whether or not the service is pleasing to God. While such an attitude is extremely destructive, and indeed an occasion for repentance, I want to focus more on the consumerism that is evident before and after the service.
With one question, I want to briefly examine the fifteen minutes of your life directly after the benediction this past Sunday and see if we can identify any signs of consumerism that you may need to repent of and change. The question is simply this: “Who were you scanning the church for?” There are obviously many answers, but most likely, we would say our friends, or our family, or someone we needed to do business with, or the pastor, or maybe we just jetted for the door so we wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Why do we all flee to our “comfort zones?” Because we are trained to be consumers and thus we are trained to fulfill our own desires above others’ needs.
I want to encourage you to change your vision before and after church by seeking out those that are new, those that are emotionally and spiritually needy, those that maybe you feel awkward around, those that have been here for three years but you still forget their name. Somebody, please seek out that guy standing by the hangers waiting for his wife to finish her conversation so he can leave. Step out of your “comfort zone,” stick your hand out to them, get to know them, invite them over to your house for a meal and love them as a person who is so precious to God that He would sacrifice His only Son.
Some times we try to excuse ourselves from reaching out to others: “I’m shy;” “I’m an introvert;” “I’m new here;” “I’m the one that should be pursued;” “I’m….;” And while all these things may be true of you, Romans 15:7 commands all of us, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Did you know that Jesus Christ left the ultimate “comfort zone” to pursue you? He traded the worship of angels to be spit on by men because He so passionately loves you and wants to welcome you into His family. Therefore we are commanded to glorify God by doing the same and by welcoming others into this family of Jesus Christ at New Hope.
I had a friend visit New Hope a few weeks back and I asked him, “Did anyone say, ‘Hi’ to you?” He responded very gently, “Only if I was in their way.” I am convinced we should never cease to be a church plant. What I mean is each of us should always feel the responsibility to reach out and to welcome others in order to build up Christ’s church. I’m also convinced that if we were obedient to Romans 15:7, we could eliminate the need for assigned greeters, because all of us would receive visitors “for the glory of God”. And finally, I’m convinced that we must be counter-cultural because we have been freed from the bondage of consumerism by a God who has provided for all our needs. He has done this by first reaching out to us with the most amazing display of love the world has ever seen, the Cross of Jesus Christ.

A New Years Resolution worth keeping

According to one source, the tradition of the New Year’s Resolution goes all the way back to 153 BC when Janus, (a mythical, two-faced king of early Rome), was placed at the head of the calendar. One of his faces looked backwards into the past year, prompting the people to give gifts to others as restitution for their mistakes. The other face looked forward to the next year and it represented new beginnings.
It’s amazing how sometimes we mirror this ancient culture. In December we give presents, sometimes with the hope of rebuilding relationships, and in January we set out to make a new beginning by developing a New Year’s Resolution. We promise to ourselves that this year will be different, that this year we are going to kick that unhealthy habit. This year we will stop smoking, stop drinking soda, stop eating junk food, stop mistreating our family, stop spending so much money; this year we will stop….
Many times Christians do a similar thing; they use the New Year to dedicate themselves to a new, heightened life of holiness. We get caught up in thinking that the Jesus looking back into last year may be disappointed in me, but the Jesus looking forward into this year is going to be very proud of me, because this year I am going to stop this or that sin. Unfortunately, this is mistaking Jesus for Janus.
Simply put, the Janus type of “repentance” (A New Years Resolution) is turning away from a “bad habit”, which God calls “sin”. While this seems noble and appealing, it is counterfeit repentance because it is incomplete. Many of us are tricked into believing that the Christian life follows this model of merely trying not to sin. We focus our eyes on “the line” of morality, we toe up to it, trying not to cross over it, and we stand paralyzed, hoping we don’t disappoint God again. Unfortunately this is how many, if not most, Christians live their lives, including me sometimes. Let me ask you, is this how you live your Christian life? Just trying not to mess up? Consumed with trying to be righteous? If so, real repentance is absolutely liberating!
The Biblical form of repentance is much different because it is complete. Christian repentance is two-fold. The first part is similar to the Janus tradition, which is turning away from sin. However, the second part is exclusively Christian, it is turning toward God. In Galatians 5:16, Paul is confronting the sin of the Galatians when he gives us a hint of how liberating true repentance can be. Reading closely we see a command: “live by the Spirit,” followed by a promise: “and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” In other words, don’t put a target on your sins and don’t focus on “the line” of morality, rather turn your body around and pursue God. Don’t be consumed with righteousness but rather be consumed by God and the unyielding control of His Holy Spirit. He is the only hope we have to conquer the “desires of the sinful nature” (Gal 5:19-21) and bear “fruit” (Gal 5:22-23)
So if you make a New Year’s Resolution, please don’t vow to stop doing something, but rather resolve to be a God-chaser by yielding to the Holy Spirit as made possible to you by the blood of Jesus. Furthermore, renew this resolution every morning, because it is in this full repentance we find real freedom from the power of sin, enabling us to turn and run freely toward the real King, Jesus Christ.