Sad day in the Premiership...

Arsenal fell today 2-1 to Manchester United in usual fashion, knocking themselves out of any possible hope of winning the Premiership. Dominating almost the entire game, they had the Lion's share of possession time yet finding themselves unable to score they played on to the loss.

This has been par for the course the entire year. Outplaying almost every team in every game this year Arsene Wenger and his team could never find the back of the net often enough, or in time. Now they finish the Premier season 6 points behind and without hope....

What to do...

Psalm 25

Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Psalm 25:4-5

I have been taking a class on Genesis, as well as reading through Deuteronomy. Its really interesting to think about how the nation of Israel came out of a very real time and place. They wrote very much with the exile in mind. Much of the Old Testament and Jewish focus at the time was trying to explain how if there really was only one God, why they would be going through what they were going through at the time.

At the time there was still a lot of confusion through Judaism. Other gods were being worshiped and there was a hope of a future king that would lead them home. This is still the hope of Jewish people today. It is interesting to think that for a time there wasn't a whole lot of things that necessarily set the Jewish nation distinctly apart. In a time when "My god is better than your god" was the game, Israel was playing a losing battle...

But what set all the questions straight? God came to earth. Christ is the answer to all the doubts and questions. If you wonder if it all seems a little too man made... or if God really did have His hand in all of history. Well Christ came to show that the Law is true and God really is the true God. How amazing that we can put all of our doubts and unbelief on the cross and God will answer them?

He cared enough to come to Earth and clear up the confusion, He cares enough to answer all of our personal doubts as well. so...

...for you I wait all the day long...

Praise God!

Part 3 (Finally!)

"Our cultural and theological differences and misunderstandings cannot undermine the work we are charged with as brothers and sisters in Christ, for the good of the name of Christ and the Kingdom of God"

OK blog fans, todays the day! We are going to finally wrap this whole thing up today...
My previous statement was a bottom up statement. We shouldnt be different in our pursuit of the Gospel because it is bigger than us and something we should all strive for. Well, this statement is a top down statement.

I will say the statement another way... Because the Gospel is so good, and so worthy, it unites us so that we dont have to work on our differences; they go away when our focus is on the Gospel and that work of uniting is done for us. (I like positive statements much more than negative ones anyways!)

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us. ~Psalm 123:1-2

Just as when Peter was focused on Jesus he was able to walk on water, even amidst the waves, so it is with us. When we look to the Lord we are looking at truth and light. Ive said before that His reality is more real than our own. We are confused and live in the midst of sin here on this side of the return of Christ. When we look to the Lord he has mercy on us, and we are filled with grace. This makes the untruths and lies of our own world pale in comparison to that light.

Notice in Psalm 123 it says we look TILL the Lord has mercy.... not if. It is a promise. God will give us mercy and peace and things that are bigger than the world when we look and wait on the Lord.

This is what we must strive for and preach to each other.
DISCLAIMER- to wait on the Lord does not mean to sit and spin your wheels. No no, the greek is closer to "waiting" on the Lord, that is, serving him as if we had a towel over our arm, our best bow tie on. My mom always told me, its easier to steer a moving ship, and that is the truth. We have to be pursing truth and the word, this is the desire of our hearts. Only then will we find, only then will the door be opened.

So go out! Run after the Lord, learn more, read more, talk more, love more, drink starbucks.... (just kidding about that last one... kinda...). The gospel is free and is there for salvtion! Will it make all of your problems go away? No, but it will make them "light and momentary" thats a promise. But even better, youll get to participate in giving God glory, which is what you were made for anyways, and you will find Joy and fulfillment in that.

And with all that goodness, who has time for racism or insult? Thats all Im trying to say!

Praise God!

Just a great song...

Enjoy everybody.... Part three coming soon.

Part 2

"The Gospel should transcend our cultural, theological, and relational norms in our everyday lives"

This was the first statement I left y'all with a couple of days ago. I think that this is the essential element of the Great Commission that Christ left the disciples, and us, with at the end of Matthew. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." ALL NATIONS. God has granted us the gift of Grace through the cross, intended for all groups of people all over the world. This good news is not ours alone... In scripture Israel was the chosen nation of God. We are in the same position as Americans that Asians, Africans, Latin Americans and the rest of the world is in. We have been grafted into the Vine of Christ by Gods love.

This is great news for us, but it also means that we do not have a monopoly on it, nor is it ours to choose to whom it will go, and how it will look. This is far beyond church polity, or the so called "great debates" of our modern church. All of that must be informed by the Gospel itself.

This is not to say that we shouldn't pursue holiness and sanctification in communicating and debating the good and evil in our Church and in our World. Christs sanctifying work comes through our community and our pursuit of Holiness: but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thess 5:21-22. Paul also tells us to warn each other of Evil and Luther encouraged us to preach the Gospel to each other daily. But this is much different from the prejudices that I know I have in my own life, and from the ignorance of being isolated in our own lives, cultures, and local churches.

There is truth in everything. Every religion, every culture, every king and dictator, every liberal spirituality is here under the eye of God and His providence. This is not to say that we should go and eat up everything that is out there, but it is by Grace that we all are living and breathing each day... so we cant just cast aside someone, or some idea, as useless and totally false. The Gospel always has room to work and change people and things. Again I appeal to the testing of everything. Let us not justify heresy and false Gospels, but lets address them and work with them and teach against them with a mind not for defense of pride, but rather that God is doing a good and eternal work here.

We should rejoice in the diversity that God put on this earth. From the plethora of plants and animals, to the changing of the seasons, to the differences of each of us. The people of God once before thought that they could revel in being the same and "figuring it out." Then in Genesis 11 God saw fit to disperse them all over the world with different languages and confusing them, so they would not think they are greater than God.

God loves creation, and it will be good once more, even in all its diversity. The world is the way it is for a reason, diverse, because no one of us has the lock on the love of God. The thing that unites us is the Gospel alone. We are united as brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter what that looks like around the globe. That is for next post though...

Praise God!
and happy Easter!

Virginia is for Chaplains

Well, I almost went a whole month without blogging. Sorry kids... but it wasn't a month, it was almost a month!

I just got back from an amazing trip to Virginia to visit my friend Justin who is a Naval Chaplains Candidate with me. First of all the Appalachian Mountains are absolutely breathtaking. I forget what an amazing creation the Earth is when I am stuck here in the Midwest with no seas and no mountains to marvel at.

Drive highway 501 in a stick shift before you die, thats all I have to say about that.

Also it was very interesting being in Lynchburg. Located right in the heart of the state, it was a distinctly different culture then what I am accustomed to here in Cincinnati Ohio. There seemed to be a church every 500 feet or so, and the gospel is something that is taken very seriously. There is a distinct southern influence and an obvious Baptist one, diverse socioeconomic standings from the backwoods to the socialite elite, and a very interesting diametric between the America of our past, and the future ahead.

Here in Ohio we like to contextualize, teach, work with the Gospel until it is woven into our daily lives (at least thats the idea). There, it is something that is assumed. The Gospel is what it is, and you're either on board or you're not. It was very interesting indeed to see what God has done for His names sake there in relation to what He is doing here.

I have thought a lot about that since then. The Gospel is moving all over the world, and in a lot of places it is moving much more abundantly then in America. I think we know that in the back of our minds, but it really is happening. Not only this, but the Gospel looks differently in different areas. There were some things that I respect about the Baptist theology and polity, and some things that I am uncomfortable with... but it works in the culture they are in. I know that I can say that I am pleased with the growth of the Church in Africa, or China, or its persistence in the South, but its very different when I see it, and when it doesn't look like what I think the church should be. I think that this cultural gospel (which Ive blogged about before) is something that has led to intolerance, poor missionary work, and hypocrisy within the church. It then becomes the gospel beyond the Gospel, which Jesus did not come to do: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Matthew 5:17. Jesus came for the Law, to fulfill it, because it was a good and righteous law... He did not come to add to the Law, which is the essence of the cultural gospel.

This made me ask a very important question of myself that I think can benefit us all... Is my foundation in my theology, or in the Gospel? I believe that there is a positive statement we can make, and a negative one regarding this idea. For the former: "The Gospel should transcend our cultural, theological, and relational norms in our everyday lives" and for the latter: "Our cultural and theological differences and misunderstandings cannot undermine the work we are charged with as brothers and sisters in Christ, for the good of the name of Christ and the Kingdom of God".

The gospel transcends all... for this reason:
I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:11-12

I will be blogging about these two statements I made in the next two days to address these ideas and tease them out a little further... Stay tuned, and Happy Easter...

He is Risen, He is Risen indeed.
Praise God!

Reality Check...

My soul thirsts for God,for the living God.When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:2

God certainly woke me up the other day... I came back from Newport and was struggling, and kinda didn't even really know it. Not that the experiance was Earth shattering or super unique, but it was significant.

I loved my time there. I realized my call there. I lived more disciplined and healthy there than I probably ever have...

So I came back and didn't really connect quickly here. Not that its impossible to know what I went through (just ask me, Ill tell ya about it!) but it was a change in my mind and in my lifestyle, which was hard for the people around me to understand. So in this struggle of figuring out how to live, Ive been learning a couple of things about God that I thought I would share as my almost month long absence ends in the blogsphere!

God has been completely reaffirming to me that I am His son. That I have already been chosen by God and that I am saved by the blood of Christ. This is a bigger deal that you might think. There is a deeper reality, a deeper truth here that I think we all need to tap into. We must tap into the reality that God's reality is where we exist, not the other way around. This world and this life isn't something that has to be figured out or achieved or completed. Rather, we exist in a greater reality, a bigger story than the one we live in. Jesus Christ and His work on the cross is the center point of time. God created this whole reality so that the Cross and the Glory of God could be lifted up.

Thats freedom! We live in a truth of salvation and mercy and Grace. The Gospel is such that we can be reminding each other of these truths every day! EVERY DAY!

I'm so guilty of trying to read enough, or think enough, or write enough... so that I can explain God to someone, or have the right study, or preach the right sermon. I can tease myself into thinking that this is pious or noble. But this real reality is such that I cant explain it nearly as well as experience and the Spirit do for each of us continually.

I'm reminded of the young man in Mark 10. He comes to Jesus saying "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth" speaking of not murdering, cheating, lying, stealing... The one that he doesn't speak to is that you shall have no gods before me...

While this man has kept what he thinks is good in his world, theres still something wrong in his life, hence why he would approach Jesus. Then Jesus drops the bomb. "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor...come, follow me".

He drops his head, and without saying a word walks away.

WHAT??? my first reaction is "GO! do it! meet the requirements and come back!!! whats your problem?? how are you just going to walk away????"

This is speaking to something much deeper. Jesus wasn't actually telling him what to do to get to heaven, He was pointing out how this young man's reality didn't line up with that of God's. The man was sad not that he couldn't walk along with Jesus and see the sights... he was sad because he knew that in his heart his treasure was money and not ultimately Christ. You have to get this to get the story... its not that he couldn't just sell the stuff... maybe he could have, but deeper than that Jesus showed him where his reality was off.

God doesn't want us to meet requirements, or to accomplish anything to get into heaven. He wants us to leave the burdens of our mixed up pressures of this world and take on the reality of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. His reality is enduring and the Gospel is that we can be a part of that. Time marches on, and Christ will still come again, and evil will be defeated, whether or not I decide to work out today or not cut that person off in my car.

How free would we feel if we could let go of our jobs, our homes, our securities, even our families and friends. If we could think of them not as security or our comfort, but rather as gifts that will come and go as "the Good Lord sees fit" (to quote o brother where art thou). Thats freedom.

So even if I didn't get picked up for the Navy, or I never talked to those friends from my past again, or if I lost my jeep!?!?? Life would go on, God would be good, and Jesus still has died for my sins. This is reality, not the stresses and sins that we get tied up in thinking is our lives. Remind me of that, every time you see me. Ill try and do the same for you!

Praise God!