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It Just Takes One

January 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

As we continue to walk through the book of Romans, we pause for four simple verses that are jam packed with power. If you’ve been in the church world for any length of time, I sure hope you’ve at least heard part of this. Here are the verses on which we’re focusing this week.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.  So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:14-17

These four verses can be summed up with just three simple words. Ashamed. Eager. Obligated.

Ashamed

Paul says he’s not ashamed of the gospel. For him to state that he’s not ashamed, asserts that there will be some that are in fact ashamed of the Gospel. So this kind of begs the question, why would someone be ashamed of the gospel if it’s the good news of God?

Well, the point of the gospel is the undeserved grace of God for us. That means we don’t earn it and that’s kind of an unpopular opinion in a world that’s focused on achievement and self promotion. So when the gospel says that we can’t but God did for us, that’s kind of a shameful thing if you think your good actions get you to heaven.

Another aspect of the gospel that can cause some people shame is how it all works. If you know the story of the Bible, you’ll know that the essence of the gospel is that Jesus died a pretty horrible death in our place. That means he got punished for something we did! And that can honestly make some people a bit ashamed. Either ashamed because they didn’t have the power to do it themselves, or ashamed because of the horrific nature of the Roman torture that Jesus endured to show his love for us. Both can really lead to a feeling of being ashamed.

Eager

When we settle in on the fact that this wonderful message of the gospel is something about which we have no need to be ashamed, then there is almost an eagerness in us to share it.

Think of it like finding a cure for cancer. If you found a cure for an ailment that was life threatening to millions of people around the world, you’d probably be eager to share that with as many people as you could! The same is true for the gospel. No it doesn’t stop cancer or lessen the intensity of earthquakes and tornadoes. But it does bring a cure of sorts to a totally different problem.

The gospel is a demonstration of our salvation. Jesus died so we don’t have to die like that, and then rose so we could live in the promise of heaven. But there’s more to it even than that.

The gospel actually addresses some of the deepest longings of our hearts. Acceptance. Belonging. Worth. Value. Identity. Purpose. Calling. All these are part of the message of the Gospel. When we really understand the gospel and are unashamed by its meaning, then we have an eagerness to share it with as many people as we can find!

Obligated

This one will strike some people a little odd. Some might even think this isn’t right. But the wonderful free nature of the gospel when understood correctly obligates us to share it.

The word obligated can also been seen like the word debt. We are indebted to the gospel. We don’t owe anything for our salvation. That’s not the point. The point of this obligation or indebtedness is that we were given something that is for us and for someone else. Think of it like this.

You receive a donation for the local Ronald McDonald House Charity. It’s a sizable stack of cash. Someone gives you $100,000 in cash to deliver to the charity. It’s for them. You don’t owe the person who gave it to you a penny. But you do owe the charity that $100,000.

The gospel is similar. By not being ashamed of the gospel, we’ve already received the gift for ourselves. When we really get what it means, we essentially deposit that gift for ourselves. But the point of the gospel isn’t just that we deposit it into our account. The point of the deposit of the gospel is that we give it to those around us because it’s just as much for them as it is for us. We’re obligated then by the gospel to hand it out to those for whom it’s intended. Which if you didn’t know, is everyone!

This week I’ll end with a bit of a challenge. We talk about large events and getting the world to know the message of the gospel. But what if we started with just one person. I mean the person living next door to you. Or the one in the cubicle across the hallway. Maybe it’s a classmate or person at the gym. You pick because the point is it only takes one.

Let’s say 5 people would take this idea seriously about sharing the gospel intentionally through the context of a relationship. Let’s say those 5 people each found one person. Walked with that one person to an understanding of the Gospel and by the end of a year those 5 people had doubled to 10. Then let’s pretend those 10 did the same thing. The next year you’d have 20. If we did this for 15 cycles, those initial 5 people who were unashamed, eager and obligated by the gospel would become 163,840 people in just 15 years time. But if they did it for 30 years, that original 5 would become 5,368,709,120 people.

And it all happens when 5 people who were unashamed, eager and obligated by the gospel call found one person each and become totally sold out on the message of the gospel in which they believed.

It just takes one!

The Song of Simeon

January 1, 2024 / / 1 Comment

The common text for the week following Christmas is the presentation of Jesus in the temple. But why is this something important to study? Why does the church look at this particular section nearly every year after Christmas? What is there for us to learn from this passage? 

22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 

 29  “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word;  30  for my eyes have seen your salvation  31  that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,  32  a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” 

The time of purification according to the Law of Moses would have been at 8 days old. This was the time of circumcision for a boy. It was also the time given in Leviticus 12 for how long it would take for a woman to be clean after giving birth. Remember there were some tremendously detailed rules for how a person was to do rituals of cleaning. 

When she comes to present the child in the temple and present herself clean after the days of her purification, she is to bring a lamb and a pair of turtle doves. There was a provision made however for those who couldn’t afford the lamb. They were just bound to bring the turtle doves. And this is exactly what Mary and Joseph did in our text. This can be for one of two reasons. Either Mary and Joseph were legitimately poor and of lowly means. The other option however is that the cost associated with the journey had rendered them unable to pay for a lamb. For whatever the reason, they brought a pair of turtle doves for the sacrifice. 

There was great symbolism and remembrance associated with the sacrifice. If you remember the time of the plagues that were brought on Egypt. The tenth plague was the death of the firstborn unless they sacrificed a lamb and put some of the blood on the doorposts so the angel of death could Passover the house. Every year they would celebrate the Passover with a similar ritual, but it didn’t end there. 

Since the Passover event saved the firstborn of the house, they also brought a sacrifice at the presentation of the firstborn child as a reminder to them that God saved the firstborn children in Egypt. So there’s a great double meaning here with a celebration of God’s deliverance from Egypt but also a continual reminder of God’s saving nature of his people. 

The story then turns quickly to Simeon. We don’t know a lot about this man aside from what we’re told here in Luke 2. He’s a devout and righteous man. He had been waiting his whole life to see this child born even though he didn’t know it would be a baby. 

The consolation of Israel is an interesting concept. Actually it functions as a title for Jesus. So just like he’s called Immanuel and King of kings, here he’s also called Consolation of Israel.  The whole idea behind consolation of Israel is found in the more common word comforter. You’ll see this more frequently in the Bible that Jesus is called the comforter. Jesus even says he’s going to send the Holy Spirit to be the comforter. 

Israel had suffered significant judgment and punishment throughout the Old Testament. They had been taken captive as the consequence for running away from God’s commands. To say that Israel needed comfort, or consolation, was a bit of an understatement. But Israel also used this idea of Consolation of Israel to help shape their view of what this Messiah figure would look like. Knowing he was going to be a consolation for their judgment and for all the trouble they had faced, they began to see the coming one as a warrior or powerhouse kind of leader. I mean how else would they be comforted for their troubles unless someone else was going to pay? 

When Simeon sees in this baby the Consolation of Israel and says behold my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the gentiles he’s actually saying something really profound. Simeon is seeing in this little baby everything that Jesus would do in his ministry. It’s almost as if he hears Jesus teaching, watches him heal, sees the miracles he does, feels the pain of his death and joy of his resurrection. 

Lord now let your servant depart in peace. He’s seen everything he needs to see but that hasn’t even happened yet! He is so confident in the work that Jesus will one day do, that he can die content knowing that Israel has already been saved, but not just Israel. He sees the salvation of the whole world. The redeeming power of God for all people, both Israelite and Gentile (non-Israelite). Simeon’s words also tie other passages of the Bible together to help see exactly who Jesus is for the people of his day and beyond. 

Two key themes for the life and ministry of Jesus are salvation and light into darkness. Salvation is earned only by the blood of the lamb. The Israelites would have known this reality. And for Simeon to claim that Jesus is the salvation of Israel, would mean that he sees Jesus as the ultimate Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This was a monstrous claim and it meant that Jesus was everything they were hoping for in the newborn king. The only problem…he didn’t really look like the powerful king they were anticipating. His parents were common folks. They weren’t rich by any stretch. They even had to use the “low cost option” for sacrifice. A major clue for how Simeon was able to see all of this in this little child is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit enabled Simeon to see Jesus as something more than just an infant child brought to the temple by his humble parents. The Spirit opened Simeon’s eyes to see something significantly more powerful. 

Then there’s the Light in the darkness line. The theme of light shining in the darkness is another key theme of scripture. We see it vividly in John’s gospel account. Jesus would be the light of the world. He was the light that shined into the darkness but the darkness wasn’t able to overcome it. Simeon sees Jesus as the light of God sent to reveal all that which was hiding in the sin shrouded corners of the world. 

But beyond this passage there are several others that speak to the world needing a light to show it the way. Isaiah 8-9 is another really important section that deals with the theme of even Israel being a place darkness. When Isaiah was writing, Assyria was going to invade and pretty much annihilate the landscape of the Galilee region. Isaiah 9 says that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. This prophecy was exactly what Simeon was seeing unfold as Mary and Joseph brought Jesus into the temple. The light of God was being carried into the Temple and one day would carry the people to God. 

The power of this section is found not in Simeon or in his confession. It’s found in the Spirit who allowed Simeon to see all of this and understand what it was about. A people lost in their own thoughts and ways are met by the God who not only would show them the way but would be the way to the ultimate life of salvation and peace. 

And this would be the message that Mary and Joseph would have taken out of the temple. This  would be part of the message Mary would ponder in her heart. As she stood at the base of the cross and watched as her son was killed on the cross, she would have felt that spear pierce her own soul too. 

Simeon saw the whole thing right there as he held the little baby in his arms. Pretty powerful message when you stop to think about it. 

A Pastor’s Prayer

November 8, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered what was on your pastor’s heart? Like what got him excited in the morning? What keeps him up at night? What breaks his heart or brings a smile to his face?

There are three short verses in a small letter in the Bible that really drive at what’s on a pastor’s heart. Here’s the set of verses – Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you,  and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. There are a few things here that really stand out.

May God our Father and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you.

The first part of this prayer has two really important pieces almost hidden in plain site. You may have noticed that I re-ordered the wording of this line. Most bibles will read “our God and Father and our Lord Jesus” but I think this misses a really cool thing that’s happening here.

Paul wrote this in a specific way to highlight that God is Father and Son simultaneously and yet there aren’t two of them but one God. He shows how God is Father and Sovereign Lord all at the same time. There are two subject (Father and Lord) but the verbs in Greek are singular. So many but one, one but many all at the same time.

Now the prayer is that we would come together. This is a theme everywhere in the Bible – the coming together of the people of God for the worship of God. The prayer of this pastor’s heart is that they would be enabled to continue to meet together.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love

All too often we get tunnel visioned on what we don’t like and the things with which we don’t agree. We get vocal about our opposition to the newest bill that was passed or the lifestyle choices of those who live differently than we live. Here the prayer turns to enhancing and nurturing what we’re for instead of what we’re against.

The two words used here – increase and abound – are kind of two sides of the same coin. It’s like he’s praying that love would abound abundantly in us. A bit repetitive I know! But the point is that this concept is vital to who we are as Christians. Yet it’s so easy to leave this one by the wayside when we’re upset or don’t get our way.

Establish your hearts blameless in holiness…at the coming of Jesus.

There is a ton packed in this little section but we’ll focus on just one part of it. This is all about God’s acting for us. Have you noticed that every single verb here has the same subject. The same actor. The same person making it happen. In each of these God is the actor. Jesus is the one who’s bringing these things to be.

He’s the one who will make us holy and blameless. This is such a great part of the prayer. We don’t make ourselves good enough or holy or blameless. No matter how hard we try, it just doesn’t work. But God in His Son Jesus, has already made us blameless. Now the prayer is that we are kept in that blameless and holy way of life until Jesus returns.

The prayer of the pastor’s heart is one of togetherness, love for one another and submission to who Jesus is. We pray other things too but this is the heart and soul of all we pray for the people God entrusted to us. And this is my prayer for you even if I don’t know you personally just yet.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

August 30, 2022 / / 0 Comments

The life of the person who claims to follow Jesus should be encompassed by love. Instead we make it about rules, attendance, offerings, and so many other secondary items that are important but not the main thing. Throughout the Bible, we’re told to love. We’re called to love God and love neighbor. So if we’re called to love so often, why do we instead focus so heavily on rules and even in some cases uniformity?

To put it short, it’s way easier. It’s far less messy to just attend, give offerings, and make everyone follow a set pattern for worship than it is to actually practice love for one another. Loving someone isn’t something that’s emotion charged rather it’s relationally bound. We have weakened love to something we can fall into and out of like it’s a boat on the water. We throw love away when it’s challenging and walk away when we just don’t want to put in the hard effort. But love is relationally bound. That means if we’re going to love someone, we’re not there just for the feels. We’re in it because of a bond we have with the other person.

This love is so much more broad than a marriage relationship, but most certainly applies there. The love talked about in the Bible is about all relationships for those who claim to be in Christ. It’s about the marriages, friendship, brotherhoods, coworkers, neighbors, workout partners, colleagues…all of them!

Throughout the book of Hebrews we’re brought face to face with men and women who lived their lives by faith in God. They believed that God was there for them and that he had their best interests at heart. They also lived knowing that the struggles and pains we face in life were there to help us grow in the discipline of following in faith. The men and women of God in Hebrews 11 remind us that even though life was hard and often nearly impossible, they relied on the work that God said he would do for, in and through them.

As the book of Hebrews closes, we see one more phase of the faith life of God’s followers. It’s what faith does to us as we live it out. We’ll call this one through faith. As we navigated through faith, we see that being in Christ means we love those around us. We’re kind to those not like us. We go out of our way to make sure people are connected not just to one another but also to the wonders of the love of God.

What’s love got to do with the life of the Christian? Well for many, unfortunately not all that much. But according to the teaching of the Bible it should be everything! Everything we do should be done out of love for God and love for our neighbor. We don’t love those around us because they’re worthy of our love but because Jesus is worthy of our loving them. It’s a really cool cycle if you think about it. God loves us when we’re unlovable, so that we can love those around us who are essentially unlovable as well.

If you’re into listen to people talk about things like this or watch a message on this very idea, check out the video below. If not, then go love someone because God is worth the love you share with them.

Couch Cushion Confessions

October 26, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever done the terrifying task of moving furniture in your home? Ok so it’s not all that terrifying but it could be! Let me explain.

In our home, we most of the time eat in the kitchen but sometimes we’ll overflow into the living room. When we have more guests into our home than can fit around the table, we’ll generally spill over into the living room and use the couch. Or at night when we’re sitting down to watch tv sometimes we’ll grab a bowl of popcorn or other snack. And this very fact is what makes moving furniture a potentially dangerous, or at minimum humbling and embarrassing task.

The food that somehow miraculously misses our mouth hole tends to make its way into the crevasses in the couch. It lodges between the cushions and sometimes even bounces (or I’m convinced crawls) under the couch into the back most corner where it’s virtually unreachable.

We can vacuum the floors and even the couch but unless we remove the cushions and use the special tools on the vacuum, we’ll leave a lot of dirt and dust and food lodged under the cushions.

This is kind of like life in this world. As followers of Jesus, we have this thing called confession. And at its core, confession is like peeling back the couch cushions and revealing what’s underneath that we refused to deal with. Confession is coming to the harsh reality that something is a miss in our life and we need to have some help dealing with it.

Look I get it. No one likes to deal with the junk under the cushions. And if we’re being honest, most of the time no one can see what’s lurking in the hidden crevasses of our lives. But not dealing with these matters, doesn’t make them go away. It’s like Jesus’ words to the church leaders of his day that they were clean on the outside and dead on the inside. He called them whitewashed tombs. Nothing living exists in a tomb. It needs to be brought into the light to find life.

God loves you for who you are but loves you too much to leave you where you are. Share on X

Confession is coming to Jesus in the mess of our lives and letting him have his way with us. Here’s the deal you don’t need to have it all together to come to Jesus but when you do come to Jesus you better expect to end up being changed.

You Can’t Control How They See It

October 14, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Communication is a tough business. You can craft your message. You can select your words. You can work on inflection and delivery. If it’s printed material, you diligently work on type face and word spacing and all the cool graphic things. But there is a time when certain things are out of your control.

Some people are just going to look for any chance to roast you over what you said or how you said it. There are people in all of our lives who play the role of the eternal antagonist. They want nothing more than to stir the pot. While others have circumstances in their lives that act like those machines at the eye doctor that filter how we see what’s clearly right in front of us. When scenario “A” happens it changes how we see life in comparison to scenario “B.” So the point here is to not over worry about someone’s interpretation of something you did not communicate in the first place.

Acknowledging that some things eventually will be outside of your ability to control however does not give you the excuse to not do your due diligence. While certain things are out of our control, much of the art of communication is very much in our control. It is the responsibility of the communicator to, well communicate effectively and efficiently and eloquently.

I recently was sent an image of a church’s graphic material. It took about half a second for me to see that someone didn’t do their homework very well. While the message communicated was very much right on, there was an unintended snag in their communication. Whoever hung the banners below didn’t understand a cultural nuance in our society. Now I will warn you that if you are easily offended, then you will likely take offense at the image. I am using it as an example that sometimes innocent communication, when lazily put in front of an audience, can speak an unintentional message.

The image is telling us that this church values friends, teaching and worship. But if you look at the way they are set side by side, you’ll notice that the letters at the top are W.T.F.

That abbreviation is not exactly what this church was going for I am very certain. But when we fail to thoroughly look at our message we run the risk of doing exactly what happened here. We can communicate a message that is completely inappropriate without even knowing it. For those of you who don’t know what the three letters mean, you’re probably way better off! Let’s just say it’s not a message most churches would like hanging over their entry doors.

So what do we do with this? Simple, slow down. Get a second set of eyes or ears on the message you’re bringing. Whether it’s in a church or a small business or in front of massive crowds or even just a group of family and friends – what you say and how you say it communicates a lot about the care you give to your message.

Communication is totally out of your hands once it’s been received by someone else, so take your time to make sure what you’re about to say is what you really want to say.

What The World Needs Now

November 10, 2020 / / 0 Comments

This world is a hot mess! I don’t really know how else to say it. People are fighting. Accusations are flying all over the place. Everyone things that their way the is the best way. We want things to get better and honestly many think that better is tied to a policy or person. But that’s not what’s going to make things better.

This week we baled on a message series to address the matters in our world. But not quite how you might think. While the issues in our nation are very much politically driven and we’re trying to find the right person to offer the right policy to fix what we feel is wrong, we have a short sighted view of the real problem.

The more time and effort we spend on short term, quick fixes the more short duration fixes we’ll discover – if we discover a fix at all. Specific people and policies are not what this world needs.

This world needs those who call themselves believers in Jesus to actually live like believers in Jesus. The world needs the church to be the church and or Christians to start living what they are claiming to be true. The world doesn’t need more love or acceptance or tolerance. The world needs forgiveness, healing and some hard truths spoken.

Some won’t like the message. Some will. The point is not to please everyone. The point is what’s needed isn’t always the thing that’s wanted. Sometimes the most needed thing is the least desired thing.

Not A Worldly Approach

November 5, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Power. Money. Prestige. These are all things that many people in the world today want. We’ll do what we have to do to gain any of these. As a matter of fact, in the world’s eyes, these are markers of success.

But there is a better way. Not that money or power or positional authority are all bad. There’s just a better way. It’s been said that the greatest enemy of great is good. We see the bigger and the better that can be found in a bigger bank account, a window office, a larger house and a host of other worldly accomplishments.

But these can and will all go away. One day we will lose our job, either by our choice or a choice that is forced upon us. One day we’ll realize that the money in our bank account didn’t buy us time with our children and it won’t go with us when we die. The things we value as the good and successful things on this earth will one day leave us wanting.

In the message below, and in the bible section to which it refers, we will see an alternative way of living. We’ll see how there are better things that will come, but often on the other side of challenging situations.

So in the meantime we need to be ok with mourning, sadness, pain, loss, and emptiness – because on the other side of these things we will find something truly amazing. We’ll find a blessing like we cannot imagine.

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