salvation

Looking for the Living Among the Dead

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“They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, ‘Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up'” (Luke 24:5-6, The Message).

I heard an interesting definition of the word amazed that was used in another translation of this passage. Basically, the women had no category for what they’d just witnessed. They had arrived with spices and other essentials needed for finishing up the burial preparations for Jesus, only to find no Jesus.

Sure, they had seen Jesus raise other people from the dead. They had also heard Jesus’ own words about being handed over to sinful men, crucified, and being raised again. But those words seemed hollow against the reality of Jesus being dead.

Easter is nothing without a physical resurrection. If Jesus is only alive in our hearts, we might as well give up on the whole church thing and do whatever we want and live however we feel like. If Jesus is actually still in that tomb, then there’s no real hope and no real future.

So many other religions claim to offer a way of life and salvation, but all their leaders are truly dead and buried. Only Christianity can offer eyewitness accounts to a risen and living Lord. Only Christianity has a God who knows the way out of the grave.

That’s why Jesus could truthfully proclaim that He was the only way, truth, and life, and that we could only come to the Father through Him. He’s the only one still living to show us the way — to be the way. He’s the only one who actually took our place and paid for our sins.

The resurrection is the final validation of the truth of Jesus’ life and words. Based on what He said, He couldn’t just be a good man or a wise teacher. He’d have to be a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Those are the only options.

The empty tomb and the risen Jesus show that He is Lord of all.

Never Getting Beyond My Need

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I was channel surfing earlier, and ran across a program called Better Together, where some speakers and authors were discussing modern idolatry and how we are all prone to it.

Basically, most of us think of idols as tiny statues made of gold or silver or wood. Most of us picture idolaters as people bowing toward some stone image that can’t possibly reciprocate.

The reality is that idolatry is taking something good, i.e. marriage, family, children, careers, success, and putting it in the place of God. It’s letting something other than God take the throne of our hearts.

The painful truth is that we are all idolaters. We have something else other than God that we put in front of God or place beside God. We never get past needing to repent our idols because our flesh craves something tangible to worship. Our flesh isn’t satisfied with God.

We will never get past our need of God because the more we grow, the more we see how far we are from the mark of God’s standard. The more we see our own faults in the light of God’s perfection and holiness. The more we understand that our good intentions rarely lead to good works.

But God is faithful even when we are not. God is faithful to His promises when we don’t keep ours to Him. God is faithful to pursue us when we so often pursue so many lesser objects instead of God. God is faithful to finish what He started in us and make us like Jesus.

Nothing Else Will Do

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I’m excited. My church is weeks away from moving to a permanent campus where everything will be brand new and shiny. I’m reminded of the metaphor Jesus used about believers being a city on a hill, because this new location is literally sitting on a hill over looking the intersection.

I’m super hyped, but I’m also smart enough to know that the honeymoon won’t last. More accurately, I’ve hopefully learned by now through lots of times where I got excited only to see the enthusiasm fade and normalcy fade in.

I can remember all those Christmas gifts that I was thrilled to get. I remember how I felt, but looking back, I can’t remember the specific gifts any more. They lost their luster and faded from my memory. Some of them even ended up in garage sales a few years later.

That’s how it goes with anything I set my heart on this side of eternity. Anything less than God won’t fill that God-shaped yearning in me. Or as C. S. Lewis put it, anything that isn’t eternal is eternally out of date and obsolete.

I look forward to our move-in date in late May. I hope I will always be grateful for this gracious gift on God’s part. But I know that at some point, it will be just a building. More than likely, it will require maintenance and updating and repairs. And at some point, it will be no more.

But what it represents and what our church is all about (and every true Bible-believing church is all about) won’t ever fade or get stolen or moth-eaten or rust. The hope of God-with-us revealed in Jesus will only get better and more wonderful and more glorious over time, past time, and into eternity.

The Birthdays Keep Coming

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At some point, I wish the birthdays would just stop.

I don’t mean I don’t want any more birthdays. I definitely don’t mean that I don’t want to live any longer.

What I do mean is that I wish that I could get to a comfortable age number and stop there. I think 35 would have been a good age to remain for a while. Maybe now I can stay 52 for a few years.

But then I remember people like my friend Nathan or my cousin Timothy who won’t get to see 52. They never got the opportunity to grow old because they left so young.

So I’m thankful for another birthday. It means I got to live. It means I got to experience God’s world and especially God in the world for another 365 days. I got to take for granted that I would wake up every morning.

As much as I enjoy opening birthday gifts, the biggest gift I get every single year is the gift of being alive and being loved. I’m reminded that I have a physical birthday on February 28, but I also have a spiritual birthday on which I prayed the sinner’s prayer and invited Jesus into my heart.

That was the day that I went from being lost to found, from being dead in sin to being alive to God. It was the day that I became a new creation and a follower of Jesus, not because I was especially deserving or good. It was because God is good and full of grace.

I think my friend Nathan or my cousin Timothy could have the chance to say some final words, they’d say that the most important gift anyone could ever receive is the gift of knowing Jesus and receiving what He did by taking our punishment on the cross, dying, and then being raised from the dead.

If anyone reading this wants to know more about following Jesus, I’ve included this link that shares the plan of salvation:

Have You Heard the Good News of Salvation?

Chariots of Fire

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One of my favorite movies of all time, Chariots of Fire, is based on an actual true story. The film is an account of the life of Eric Liddell, or at least the part of his life where he chooses between going to China to be a missionary and training for the Olympic games.

The movie hit theaters back in 1981. I can’t say with 100% confidence that everything portrayed in the movie is the way it actually happened. Hollywood does tend to take liberties for the sake of dramatic tension and for those feel-good moments.

I can say that the real Eric Liddell was willing to live and die for the sake of the gospel. He ended up going to China after the 1924 Olympics (spoiler alert), where he remained until his death in 1945. He literally sacrificed his life at age 43 for Christ because he felt that to lose your life is to gain it and to die for Christ is gain.

These are his actual words that reflect the heart of a true missionary and follower of Jesus Christ:

“I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator, infinitely holy and loving, who has a plan for the world, a plan for my life, and some daily work for me to do. I believe in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, as Example, Lord, and Savior. I believe in the Holy Spirit who is able to guide my life so that I may know God’s will; and I am prepared to allow him to guide and control my life. I believe in God’s law that I should love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength; and my neighbor as myself. I believe it is God’s will that the whole world should be without any barriers of race, color, class, or anything else that breaks the spirit of fellowship. To believe means to believe with the mind and heart, to accept, and to act accordingly on that basis” (Eric Liddell).

The Church as a Refuge

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I’ve been thinking lately about the whole refugee crisis. I’ve also been putting some thought into what my pastor said about the church being a refuge. Who better than to show hope to refugees than people whom the Bible calls aliens and strangers in this world who await a coming Kingdom?

The body of believers should be a place where people can go to escape from the fallout from the lies that society tells people about finding inner peace and fulfillment through outward change.

It should be where people go to find God and find the hope of salvation offered in the person of Jesus Christ, not more condemnation for lifestyle choices. It should be where spiritual transformation happens and not mere behavior modification.

I noticed today that when Jesus talked to the woman at the well, He didn’t force her to change her lifestyle before He offered the living water to her. He didn’t make her go end her relationship with the man she was living with who was not her husband.

He simply offered her a gift that would change her life forever if she took it. After all, it’s the Gospel that changes people. It’s what changes peoples’ hearts, which in turn leads to changed lives.

The Church has been guilty of putting up barriers between people and the Gospel almost from the very beginning. The people who need Jesus and the Gospel most are often the ones who feel the least welcome inside our doors.

The Gospel is for everyone. Thus, the Church is for everyone.

 

John 3:16

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“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).

Anybody remember that guy with the rainbow colored afro who used to hold up the John 3:16 signs at sporting events? I do.

Some of you reading this may not be old enough to remember him, but you’re at least familiar with the verse. Perhaps too familiar. Maybe you’re like me and you’ve heard these words so many times that you’ve almost stopped listening to them.

I think I heard them in a fresh new way today at Room in the Inn when the guest speaker chose that as the theme of his message to the homeless men.

“For God . . .” Every great story begins with God. Every story of hope and redemption, every story where good overcomes evil, begins with God.

“For God loved . . .” If your God is known more for what He hates and what He is against rather than what He loves and what He is for, perhaps you’re serving a god instead of God. The defining verse about the God of the bible starts out with “For God so loved . . .”

“For God loved the world . . .” God doesn’t just love white Republicans. God doesn’t just love Americans. God doesn’t just love religious people. God doesn’t just love “successful” people with the perfect resumes and perfect lives.

“For God loved the world  so much that He gave . . .” True love always involves sacrifice. The epitome and the ultimate example of sacrificial love is God giving us Jesus both to live and to die for us.

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone . . .” Salvation is for everyone. Not just a select few. Not just for some. Not for those who deserve it (because none of us do). It’s for anyone who asks for it. It’s for you and me.

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes . . .” Sometimes, faith gets overcomplicated. Sometimes faith gets reduced to pithy bumper sticker slogans. Faith is simple yet profound. It costs nothing yet it is priceless. Faith means believing not just with your heart or your mind but with your whole life.

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

That’s it. You don’t have to perish. You have the choice of eternal life. Not just a future pie in the sky by and by kind of life, but real and robust life to the full right here and now. God will always respect the decision you make, whether for Him or not.

The choice is yours. What will you do with it?

 

The Love of God: December Edition

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“Love is the effort and desire to make someone else everything they were created to be (Timothy Keller).

Advent is all about love made visible. Specifically, it centers around how God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son to be born in a feeding trough in the back room of a home where the animals usually were kept.

He gave His one and only Son to pitch His tent and live among us and walk beside us and go through all our experiences and temptations, and to emerge unscathed and sinless.

He gave His one and only Son to choose Calvary and to be the ultimate sacrifice, dying the death of a common criminal, for us who had willfully rebelled against the God of the Universe.

He gave His one and only Son to be the first and only one in history to make His tomb a temporary residence and to rise from the grave after three days, forever defeating death and hell and sin.

He gave His one and only Son so that no one should ever have to perish, to go through this life alone, to live in failure and shame, or to spend eternity apart from God.

God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son for you.

“For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Still the Same

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“You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message” (Colossians 1:21-23, The Message).

It’s the same Gospel message that still saves anyone who comes to God in faith.

It’s the same Gospel message that saved a wretch like me.

It’s the same Gospel message that has the power to transform and liberate.

It’s still the same.

Regret

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Since this morning’s sermon at The Church at Avenue South from Aaron Bryant, I’ve been thinking about the story of Joseph in the Old Testament a lot today. More specifically, my thoughts have been centered on Joseph’s brothers.

I’ve always wondered why it was that when his brothers came to Egypt to buy food during the famine that Joseph recognized them but none of them knew who he was.

I realize that he was probably dressed in Egyptian garb and would  have had his hair and beard styled in the Egyptian fashions of that time.

I wonder if one of the reasons he was able to spot them was that they were still stuck in that moment when they made the horrible decision to sell him into slavery over 13 years ago.

Some of you reading this are still stuck in the past. You’re frozen in time in the moment when a relative hurt you or a friend betrayed you or a spouse deserted you. You haven’t been able to move past that moment in time.

Joseph had moved on, both literally and figuratively. By the time his brothers showed up, he had been though slavery, false accusations, imprisonment, and later exaltation. He had seen how God was with him through it all.

He was able to see at the end how God used what his brothers had meant for evil and turned it into something good. In fact, God used what was done to Joseph to set up the salvation of an entire nation in the making.

You come to the place where you release the hurt and pain done to you when you realize how God has redeemed it. When you’re able to forgive those who wounded you, you open the door to the prison and find out that it’s you that you’re setting free.

God still works all things together for good– even the bad and hard things– and that includes your story. That doesn’t excuse what people have done to you and it doesn’t lessen the pain, but it does mean that your wounds and scars are not the end of the story. God has a way of redeeming and restoring what was taken from you and giving you something so much better in return.