Rights and Wrongs of Read 1

When I was a young boy I showed evidence of struggles with reading. Whenever I would read, my eyes would skip to the next line. By the time they caught this and I got my reading glasses, I was already behind and reading at a lower grade level than the other kids. Somehow I was able to keep up in school and make all A’s, (typical first born behavior). I was finding a way to please my teachers in spite of my weakness. The school said they couldn’t do anything for me because I had figured out how to compensate. Compensate is exactly what I did; I spent the rest of my school days doing just that. I would find ways to try and speed up my reading to keep up with other students. The public school where I started as a freshman in high school wasn’t too bad, but Lutheran High KC was much tougher. Then came college and Seminary, and I wonder how I made it through with all the reading I had to do. Still today, the challenges that come along with reading are frustrating to me. I am not complaining; I know I have other things that come easier. I knew I had to keep facing these challenges and find ways to work with and around them, especially since reading plays a key role in growing in faith. Over time, I have found ways to read that work for me, and not all of it is flat out reading the Bible verse by verse.   I have Bible reading plans on my phone & other materials related to faith. I listen and talk to other pastors and professors as I’m prepping for sermons, blogs, and Bible studies. Before I was leading the young adult group, I was participating in a men’s Bible study, and Mindy and I participated in a small group for families.  Oh yeah, and I read the Beginner’s Bible to my kids most every night.

           

What is the point? This week is “Read 1”. We debated if one verse was enough for our discipleship model, but I knew that making it one chapter might be too much for some of our first time members. I really wanted our discipleship model to be thematic (maybe it’s the way I’m built or the influence of my youth).  It just fit better if all the key points were 1’s. Besides that, I didn’t want it to feel legalistic, like the model I grew up in. I wanted people to read the Word of God and the Gospels with great joy.  Thus, we kept it at Read 1: reading 1 verse each day.

Read 1 relates not just to the discipleship model, but also to Jonah. One of Jonah’s issues with Read 1 was not believing it would work. At that time, God’s Word was communicated orally.  Perhaps you could say that “Read 1” could also be called “Listening 1”. In Jonah’s day, the prophets were called to communicate the promise to the people, and Jonah was a prophet. His oral presentation was very important. Jonah had the idea that if he preached just half way, or half-heartedly, then there was no way the people of Ninevah would believe. Much to Jonah’s shock – they did! God’s Word worked despite Jonah’s meager attempt to share it. This is the amazing thing about God’s Word! It is living and cuts through the hearts of men! As a pastor, I wonder when and how this is going to happen, but then it does, and it’s amazing! As Jesus’ disciples, we get to keep listening to God, reading His Word, and preparing to share it. We trust He will do the work when we share His words with the Ninevah’s of this world.

Rights and Wrongs of Love 1

Sometimes the shocking thing about being a parent is watching how your love comes through to your kids. Most days as a parent, I think Mindy and I are just making it by. Sure, we are intentional about teaching them God’s love, but some days we wonder how it will translate. Gavin is our most temperamental kid.  When we discipline him, he will usually give us some kind of shocking face. Often, it seems like he wants to punish us for punishing him. He will run to his room, or even tell me I am a bad daddy. We never know what we are going to get with that kid. However, Gavin is also my most loving kid. He is the one that will give his mom back rubs, and come in at night to give me a kiss. A lot of his personality is far from my understanding. He functions, reacts, and responds differently than I do. My greatest challenge is to learn about Gavin and understand the middle child. My wife and my brother were middle children, and I watch how Gavin is similar to them. As his father, I seek out ways to love him. Lately, I have had the huge blessing of spending more time with him.  When Jacob started Kindergarten and began leaving for school with Mindy, I missed Jacob’s leadership and guidance at home showing the other kids what to do. Soon I realized that this gave me more time with Gav.  Rather than doing his own thing and letting me do mine, getting everyone’s stuff together to go, he wants to check in and help.  He wants to carry around his lunch box rather than keeping it on the counter where I have things gathered.  He wants to sit and watch Sportscenter with me instead of playing.  These first few months of preschool have allowed me to see unique pieces of his heart, and I am learning how to love him instead of expecting him to be like Jacob, or me. 

This may sound harsh, but it’s our “unique” personalities that God loves when He loves 1, or loves us. He embraces us the way we are and loves us, so that we can love others.

           

What does this have to do with Jonah? Well, we finally get to that big fish. As we talk about the big fish, we are really talking about God’s love for His prophet. The more you get into Jonah’s story, the more you wonder why God kept using this guy. Couldn’t He have found someone better than Jonah to go speak to these people? Maybe God knew, since He is omniscient and all, that only Jonah was going to break through to Ninevah. Here is something else to think about. God had a lot of prophets, and they were all very different. They each had some quirk that made them “unique”, and yet God used all of them.

The biggest piece for us this weekend is embracing the idea that “The Rights and Wrongs of Love 1” have more to do with letting God love us and shape how He uses us. Being human, we don’t want anyone to see our flaws, even though we know that every single person has them. God, who comes to forgive us, re-shapes our flaws, which then translates into uniqueness to work for His glory. God took stubborn, crazy Jonah, who was selfish on most days and even wanted to die, and used him to redeem a city. Not only that, God used the reference of Jonah inside the fish to relate to Jesus’ redemption for you and me.

Rights and Wrongs of Worship 1

Every year in October we will go over the discipleship model. Yes, I said every year. I remember when Mindy and I had a conversation about this. She asked me if I was really going to preach on the discipleship model every year, and I responded yes.  It is not just a whim; I have spent time thinking through this decision and why this is important. I don’t know about you, but a million thoughts run through my head every day.  One moment I can be thinking about one of my friends, and then I’ll see something and my mind changes directions. If I don’t respond to that person or thought right away, it may be gone. Even a passionate feeling about a subject, thought, or conversation can be lost if I don’t act on it in that moment. Now, I know some things are good to sleep on. Sometimes we are so emotional that we need time to cool down and check our emotions at the door. Yet other times if something is not fresh on our minds, we forget it.

           

Having a good memory has always been one of my strengths.  Images I see and make are burned into my head forever. I rely on them for many things, from preaching, to blogs, and of course – conversations. Having said that, there are times when something slips my mind. If events, discussions, and details are not kept in the forefront of my mind, they can be lost. Advertising has always intrigued me because it is used to help us remember things they want us to know. They are the best at jingles, images, and statements that are forever stuck in our minds. McDonalds has brought back Monopoly over and over again. People never get tired of trying to win a million dollars. McDonalds just switches the menu items they put on their monopoly pieces so you try different things. Hardee’s has chosen to be the most sexually explicit of all the fast food chains, and they never tire of telling us how they make their biscuits from scratch every day. This is not just with fast food. One of my favorite commercials right now is Nationwide. I love when Peyton Manning is humming the jingle even while he eats his chicken parmesan sandwich.  Progressive never gets tired of showing you Flo and her latest idea, and the little Gecko from Geico reminds us of saving money in 15 minutes or less. What’s my point?

           

Why we are so concerned about going over something again, or in this case, year after year, in the church? Are we going to let the commercials win out over God’s message to stay connected to Him? This is why we take time to go through the discipleship model time and time again. October is a great time to do it as we are settling into our fall routines. Recently, one of the discussions in ministry council was how we tend to focus on the right and wrong way to Worship 1, Love 1, Read 1 and Pray 1. This gives us a great opportunity to learn from Jonah.  Jonah had to learn the rights and wrongs of discipleship as God called him to extraordinary servanthood. The next several weeks we will discuss the discipleship model and how it played out in Jonah’s life. He had very real struggles that are similar to our own battles with the discipleship model. This weekend we begin with Worship 1. Jonah certainly wanted to worship God in his own way. God spent time reforming Jonah to help him understand what he was missing in worship. I pray that we will see God’s deep connection with us in worship as well, despite our mistakes and failures.

Taking on the form of a servant

I have found that at different times in my life I have picked different people to emulate. There was something about each of them that I liked and I wanted to “take on their form”. For example, I love singer/song writer John Mayer and his way of talking about life in his lyrics. He speaks of having a quarter-life crisis (as opposed to a mid-life crisis), understanding the heart of life, of how fear is misunderstood, of stopping this train of life, and having to grow up. Because of my passion for life and relationships, I want to articulate words in that unique and special way too. Sure Mayer’s character has boldly shown his flaws like his lyrics boldly speak of life. But I wanted to “take on his form” of communication. At other times I wanted to “take on the form” of those that were athletically driven, those that were health conscience or financially wise, and the list could go on. These may all sound like models, and they are, but “taking on their form” is important for our discussion this week.

           

A form is the shape or configuration of something. Configured is usually a term we use for cars, video games, or our computer, but configuring ourselves means thinking through the things that define us and how we are made. This is why when we look at different “forms” of people we have a tendency to draw conclusions of what we like or don’t like about them. Since each of us have different interests, different forms are found in many different facets of life. That’s why when we talk about Jesus emptying himself and taking on the form of a servant, it is a challenging concept. It is challenging because most forms, models, or configurations are upgrades, but in this case, it seems to be more of a downgrade.

           

One of the greatest debates on the Philippians 2 passage for this week has been around the Greek word for “empty”. Some have questioned whether the section of verse 7 that says “…but emptied himself…” means that Jesus gave up His deity or lost His nature of God. Theologically, we know this is not correct. There are so many ways Jesus shows us He is still God while He was on earth, but this does bring up an important point in understanding this passage. He had to empty himself. He had to humble himself, to take on the human nature and the form of a servant. He came down, giving up His high status, to be in the form of a humble servant. These are powerful lines as we compare it to our nature and drive. Jesus’ form of a servant means a rescuing power for us. We are no longer bonded to our selfish nature to make ourselves better. We now can take on the form of becoming a servant to others. This weekend we’ll spend time talking about how that change in form, or change in configuration, takes place.  Jesus’ powerful work is now alive in us and His emptying is the filling that we needed.  

Waging War

In college when I went back to work at Petco, it was easy to pass judgment (like we talked about last week). I had made the choice to work, but I realized that many of my co-workers didn’t have that choice. They had to work. Also, I had more education than most of them, and often worked harder. I was even commended for the way I turned the cans to show the label. All these things, and more, could have supported the thought that I deserved to be paid more than most of them.

In California on the way down to Laguna Beach, Mindy and I would see workers waiting at a certain spot to get picked up for work. Trucks would stop, pick up the number of workers they needed for the day, and head off to their job site. I am pretty sure none of them cared what the others got paid; they all just wanted to work. They were desperate to feed their families and to take care of their needs. When you are desperate you have less time to worry about what others are getting. They were all in the same boat and on an even playing field.

I think this is one of the most powerful pieces of the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20. The disciples were asking Jesus about order and who gets what when Jesus tells this parable. I think they knew this concept – most people needing work are not worried about what others are getting paid, especially when they are desperate.  All you want is your need to be filled.

If you look far enough back in my Facebook pictures you will find me handing Bibles out to kids in Belize. I remember how desperate they were to hear the Gospel. They loved the knowledge of Jesus. They loved it because most of their worlds were full of parents who were promiscuous and often had little time for their kids. The parents often turned to substances to escape their life. Sadly, if you went just down from the village you would find beautiful condos built for tourists who certainly couldn’t understand that desperation.

           

The thing about sin is that we are all desperate.  When we finally come under the covering of God’s grace, it is a relief – a need fulfilled. Jesus needed to get His disciples back to that desperation. He needed to remind them of where they were when they started. He needed them to stop waging war about titles or wages, and move into the place of grace. This weekend I pray we all move into that place of grace.

Passing Judgment

Every day our world gets better and better at passing judgment. This week was a week when most football fans rejoiced that the NFL is back in full swing.  Yet it was also a week where a star player was faced with public ridicule. Of course the crime was horrible. It was painful to see the abuse Ray Rice’s fiancé suffered.  The interesting part was listening to the sports writers and regular news people talk about who is to blame. Some have asked the NFL commissioner to step down. I even heard it said that ESPN is to blame because it is like a gossip magazine for guys. Men get sucked into the drama and can’t wait to see what happens next. I have to admit I fall into this category as I watch the sports news. Right now the world waits to see what judgment is passed and to hear the reactions.

           

This happens every day of our life – people passing judgment on others. The truth is, most of us worry about it even when nobody is talking. We worry what others will think. How will that judgment affect my life? Ray Rice thought his judgment was already passed until the rest of his video came out. The reality is, if people had video of the ins and outs of our lives the headlines and news stories would not be so good either. They might not be as tragic as the Ray Rice video, but it would certainly show our struggles and sins.

           

In his wisdom, Paul begins to teach us about this in Romans. He helps people understand the judgment we pass and how often we find ourselves talking about others. Paul helps us see areas we need to work on and how we need to stay focused on our relationship with Jesus.

           

Here is the great thing. After seeing the video of our lives, Jesus could have come in and passed judgment. Instead, He passed on passing judgment and took our judgment on Himself for us. Amazing how a world caught up in this passing judgment thing is missing the solution! This weekend we focus on how God’s passing judgment is just what we need.

Trusting Leadership

There is nothing that brings the Hulk rage out in me more than one of my kids asking me why they have to do something. Now, I am not talking about why we put gas in the car, but things like why we have to brush our teeth. The problem is that most of the time this question is not posed in a delightful and loving way. It is posed with a deep disdain for what they are doing. It doesn’t matter whether it is my two-year-old or my six-year-old, this question comes across in a challenging manner for me. I want to look them in the eye and tell them because I know what is best.

           

It is funny how this happens between parents and kids, yet eventually kids see the wisdom of their parents. This was one of the funniest parts of watching high school kids go to college and come back. They had a new perspective on their parents’ leadership in their lives. Sure, there are certain situations where parents are not guiding their kids in good ways, but often that leads to less complaining by the kids and quicker results with their issues. This does not only happen in the parent and kid relationship, but in every aspect of leadership. They say leadership is lonely because so often as a leader you are making decisions that others don’t understand. And most often like parents, you are making decisions based upon what is best for the group as a whole.

I love the scene from Bruce Almighty where Bruce gets to be God and answer all the prayer requests. He firsts starts by answering them all yes. Conflicts arise when everybody starts winning the lottery and their other desires are granted. This is exactly why Paul would spend time writing a passage like Romans 13:1-10. Our world is quick to question leadership. He knew as humans we are constantly like my kids asking why. Sometimes the why is cleared up, but there remains struggles with the leadership. As Christians we trust that God has put those people in place, and while we know they are sinners and will make mistakes, we trust God has ultimate power. There will still be days and issues where we will want to shake people with that Hulk rage, including our leadership, but we get to set the example to trust God and the leadership.