..but not crushed

Pauls speaks of the reality of the Christian life," We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." How can we know for sure? Only because Jesus experienced all of this for us so that we wouldn’t have to.

Jesus was crushed for our iniqities.
Jesus' sweat turned into blood in despair.
Jesus was forsaken on the cross.
Jesus was destroyed in death.

All for His glory and on our behalf.

Holy Week

Anticipation! Preparation! Celebration!

Every Jewish family was busier than usual this week preparing their home, their family, and their hearts for Passover. Passover was the annual celebration of God’s redemption of His people out of slavery from Egypt. The Rabbis taught that each generation must regard itself as having been personally delivered and redeemed. Therefore, the preparation was spiritual as well as practical. Each family was to eliminate even the smallest morsel of yeast (a symbol of impurity) from their home. And they were to carefully choose a sacrificial lamb without blemish. The celebration begins with the youngest child asking the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Then the father would recount God’s marvelous works on behalf of His people.

Though many were too busy to notice, this particular Passover week God was unfolding a new layer of redemption. While lambs were chosen for the feast, Jesus entered Jerusalem as the Passover lamb who would die for the redemption of mankind. While people were purging every last piece of impurity, the chief priests were seeking how to betray Jesus and put Him to death. We see Jesus willing to be humble, broken, and betrayed because He knew that He was the ultimate Passover lamb whose sacrifice would redeem us.

As you reflect on this week, spend some time preparing your heart through personal confession of impurity. Anticipate meeting with God again as you retell the story of Jesus. Celebrate the freedom, forgiveness and redemption that we possess because Jesus was our perfect Passover lamb. This week is different from all other weeks because of God’s marvelous work on our behalf.

Passion?

This last week I preached on the letter to Laodicea in the churches of Revelation. The problem with that church was their lukewarm response to the gospel. They were not uninfluenced by God, but it was so moderate that it actually disgusted Jesus (Revelation 3:14-22). Jesus says it makes him want to literally "vomit." Yikes. This is not what you want Jesus to say to your church. I was really struck by verse 19 which says, "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent." First of all we can be encouraged that conviction and discipline is a sign that God loves us enough to convict us out of our lethargy. And Jesus, even in his disgust, is graciously pursuing and lovingly rebuking those whom He loves.

But I found the last half of that verse very interesting. He says, be zealous and repent. What is the call for the lukewarm? Be zealous again. But how do you do that? We can't simply conjure up passion or zeal for the Lord. We can't expect a Passion Conference every quarter to manufacture more passion for Jesus. Jesus says, simply repent. True passion comes out of repentance. Unfortunately far too often repentance breeds guilt and self-deprication rather than passion. Therefore we start to think that we should repent less and less as we grow, but indeed the opposite is true. See Tim Keller's article on repentance. Repentance is necessary because it reminds us daily of our need for Him and the truth of what God has done for us. The church at Laodicea had lost their passion because they had lost their need for Jesus. Repentance reminds us of our deep need for Jesus. In our desperate need, God became man to redeem us, to renew creation, to forgive us, to change our identity for His glory and our benefit. The only reasonable response to the truth of the gospel is passionately surrendering everything to Him. We can't be lukewarm or moderate to the gospel! The response is not simply emotionalism, but true passion that is based in gratitude for Jesus. We wouldn't naturally think this way, but true repentance actually breeds passion.

U2

In the last two months, I have added a new baby and have added another job at the church. Needless to say, blogging has been down on the priority list. What better way to kick it back up than to talk about U2's new album. I know you are shocked that a pastor likes U2. At the risk of being cliche, I admit that I like U2. This review makes me pretty excited about the new album. Below is an excerpt from it.

"The new U2 album, 'No Line On The Horizon' will be released on March 2nd. It is a great record, and greatness is what rock and roll and the world needs right now. From the grittily urgent yet ethereal title track all the way to the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda of 'Cedars Of Lebanon' it conjures an extraordinary journey through sound and ideas, a search for soul in a brutal, confusing world, all bound together in narcotic melody and space age pop songs."

I have always appreciated how U2 seems to be in touch with the cultural climate and you see that in each album. And it is interesting how culturally we often look to music or entertainment to find soul in a brutal and confusing world. That is alot of pressure to put on an album. He goes on to say that U2 is "making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that?"

respect

In my study on 1 Timothy 5:1-2, I was struck by the little phrase "with all purity." Purity in this passage is in the context of respect and mutual submission. And the question is what does purity have to do with respect? Often times purity is talked about in terms of what we don't do. Obviously that is a part of purity, but pursuing purity from this passage is a proactive way to give respect to one another.

Paul invites this church to treat women as sisters with all purity. Impurity actually denigrates our relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. Sexual impurity is taking people created in the image of God and denigrating them to objects of lust or desire. Impurity not only disrespects people, but it disrespects God’s created order. To pursue purity is to see each other as brothers and sisters. Instead of lust, we seek to see people as sisters in need of dignity and grieve when they are not respected. Therefore, one reason we pursue purity is so that we can show more respect to one another.

Also, I would recommend an online book that I read as a part of my preparation. It is specifically about the issues of lust and pornography written specifically for men. You can find it here.

election day

Here is an excellent post by John Piper on how Christians should view government and our call to prayer. Check it out.

txt messaging and culture

I really appreciate the recent work on Christians in culture. I believe that our call as Christians should involve interpreting our culture as well as interpreting scripture. That is the good work of each of us as missionaries. Too often we either throw darts at culture or simply let it wash over us instead of asking how we can be involved in the redemption of culture.

On Andy Crouch's blog, he takes a "cultural artifact" and asks 5 questions to help us in the process. I think this is a great exercise to get us thinking about our culture. For example he took the cultural artifact of text messaging here. Here are the questions that he asks about each cultural artifact.

1. What does text messaging assume about the way the world is?
2. What does text messaging assume about the way the world should be?
3. What does text messaging make possible?
4. What does text messaging make impossible (or at least a lot more difficult)?
5. What new culture is created in response?

It is interesting to see people's responses. Other examples: the weather channel, presidential debates and backpacks.