Thursday, December 17, 2009

“God’s Sovereignty & Human Responsibility: Lessons from the Plagues” Part 2 – Exodus 7-10 (Sermon Recap)

God judged Pharaoh by sending the plagues. But how did God do this? By hardening his heart (Exodus 4:21). This raises some troubling questions for us. It seems like God made Pharaoh resistant to what God sent Moses to accomplish. So how much control does God have over human life? How does he exercise this control? Frankly, questions like this are either avoided by Christians or they are answered in ways that basically chop up biblical texts into so many out of context pieces they become devoid of their original meaning. To avoid this, and to instead rightly exegete, or interpret, this passage (and really this applies to right exegesis of any biblical passage), we need to follow two basic rules:

1) See the verses in question in context, both the immediate context and the context of the entire Bible. We want to appreciate what the verses actually say and then put them alongside other verses that speak on the same or similar subject.

2) Let the Bible interpret the Bible. In other words, we have to give great weight to when the Bible references and comments on another part of the Bible. So in our case, what Paul says about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Romans 9 should greatly inform our understanding of what was going on in Exodus 7-10.

Looking back then at Exodus 4:21, we need to define some key words. With the word "harden" there are several similar meanings. One meaning has the sense of strength or conviction. So in some passages Pharaoh's resistance is essentially a strong absolute conviction to not let Israel go. Another meaning has more the sense of heaviness or weightiness. So in some passages (ex. Exodus 7:14), Pharaoh's heart is being described as being very heavy, unwilling to even budge. With the word "heart" we are talking about the inner core of a person, the real "you," so to speak. It is the point where your will, your desires, and your motives come together.

Thus, Exodus 4:21 is saying that in the core of his being, Pharaoh will resist God. And God is going to be the one who makes this happen ("I will harden his heart"). God then is in control of Pharaoh's failure to obey God. This is clearly what Exodus 4:21 is saying. And note that this verse is set up as a kind of theme statement for all the other verses that follow after it. God is saying that when it comes to the various miracles (i.e. plagues) he will do - notice that miracles is plural, which means that for all of them – God will be orchestrating Pharaoh's response.

Now when we go through Exodus 7-10, we do see Pharaoh's heart described in several different ways. For the first five of the plagues, it is said that Pharaoh hardened his heart (see Exodus 7:13, 8:15 for instance). With the second five plagues God is mentioned more directly and it is said that he hardened Pharaoh's heart (see Exodus 9:10 for example). At first glance then it appears that what happened was that Pharaoh hardened his heart in the beginning and then afterwards God began hardening his heart. However, this ignores one basic fact – that the whole story of the plagues actually begins back in Exodus 4:21. Before anything started with Pharaoh God makes clear that throughout this process he will be the one hardening Pharaoh's heart. In fact, even when it is said that Pharaoh hardened his heart, the Bible often adds that this happened "as the Lord had said" (see again Exodus 8:15 or 9:35; see also 10:1).

Clearly, if we are being faithful to these passages, we see that Pharaoh's resistance can be directly attributed to the influence and manipulation of God. Naturally this raises a whole host of questions for us. Does this mean then that humans are basically robots? Doesn't this make God out to be some kind of cosmic tyrant? Really, the most basic question we are asking here is what all this says about God and his sovereignty and how that fits with human's responsibility to obey God.

To answer this basic question we must tie in verses from other parts of Scripture. This leads me to assert two biblical facts related to human responsibility and four biblical facts related to God's sovereignty.

Two facts concerning our responsibility:

1. Each person is fully accountable for their sin against God.

See Psalm 51:3-4. David identifies his sin of adultery and a murder cover up as being primarily against God.

2. God is not responsible for anyone's sin. He does not sin and he does not cause others to sin.

See James 1:13 and Luke 17:1-2. However we speak of God and human sin, we should never place the responsibility on God. Nobody will be able to stand before God one day and blame him for their sins. See also Job 34:10. So, when we ask the question, who is guilty of defying God in the case of Pharaoh, the answer is Pharaoh! This is why the Bible speaks of Pharaoh "sinning" (see Exodus 9:34). God cannot sin (for if sin is rebellion against God, how could God rebel against himself), only we can sin. And when we do sin, we are the ones who are rightfully held accountable.

Four facts concerning God's sovereignty:

1. God is all powerful and in control of all things. He is sovereign.

We DO NOT have a passive God. As Mark Dever notes, "Circumstances do not determine God's plan; God's plan determine circumstances." God exercises complete power and control over everything. There are many many examples of this in the Bible, just two would be Exodus 4:11 or Prov 21:1.

2. God will sovereignly judge those who continue to defy him by their sin.

God doesn't just allow judgment. He actively initiates it and carries it out. See Exodus 7:4.

3. God is so sovereign, he is able to use people's sin to judge them for his sin.

This is where it gets tricky. Some would say, how could this be? Can God actually be sovereign in this way and still not be directly responsible for sin. The biblical answer to this is, "Yes!" God is just that good at what he does. Certainly, there is a certain degree of mystery in how all this fits together.

However, the main point here is to see that in God's interactions with Pharaoh he was showing his unique and complete sovereignty over everything, and deliberately at the expense of Pharaoh. Pharaoh was seen, and saw himself, as an incarnate God. He believed he could do anything he wanted. So God exposes Pharaoh by essentially taking away his supposed "will." Pharaoh is not a god at all if his ability to respond and make decisions are in fact completely in the Lord's hands.

God allows things to progress as they do so that the judgment on Pharaoh might be increased. All of this is a natural consequence of rejecting God. See 2 Thess 2:9-12 and Romans 1:28-32. The Romans 1 passage is particularly instructive. It speaks of man having a "debased mind to do what ought not to be done." This shows our accountability before God for our sin and that sin originates within man. At the same time, the passage notes that God "gave them up." RC Sproul describes this as being like leaving clay out in the sun. As clay is left out it will naturally dry out and get brittle and crumble. So also God can give us up to our sin so that we eventually crumble. And it is God's initiative and prerogative to do this, whenever he wants to.

No wonder than the Bible says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!

4. All God's sovereign judgments fit the crime; they are completely fair and perfect.

God does not sin nor does he cause people to sin. However, God does command, orchestrate and direct sin and sinners to accomplish his purposes. And he does this in a way that is consistent with his character – thus, in a way that is always ultimately good and perfect and right (cf Deut 32:4). As I noted earlier, a big chunk of this must remain a mystery to us. We are not given the full answer to how all this exactly fits together. Nevertheless, we must affirm all of it. And by doing this we can begin to apply this biblical teaching to our lives in ways that will produce rich and abundant thankfulness to God.

We will be thankful…

1. For the greatness of God's mercy.

Romans 9:14-18 gives us the definitive word on understanding the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. In the end, as the passage says, God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. The important thing to see here is that God does in fact show mercy! God could easily not show any mercy at all. God could act as a sovereign tyrant. Instead, he chooses to act as a sovereign dad, showing more mercy towards his creation than we deserve.

2. For the good news of God called the gospel. It is more beautiful and powerful than we realize!

As Romans 1:16 tells us, the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." The astounding beauty of the gospel is that God shows us mercy by putting the judgment we deserved for our sins on his Son Jesus Christ so that we might have life. The unbelievable power of the gospel is that it really can does save people. Indeed, how could it not save people, since it was planned and carried out by a God who is completely sovereign?

This then is why we must say that no one can save themselves by their own power. Only God can do it. A heart can't changed unless it is worked on by God, the only expert heart surgeon able to come in and make a hard heart soft and new and able to receive faith and grace. And God has given to believers the task of telling others about what God is able to do to their hearts (Rom 10:14-15).

We are invited to believe in God. But God can harden people if he chooses, which would be a fair and righteous act of judgment on his part. We should not wait for that moment to come. Instead, let us passionately call people to accept God's gracious invitation, and God by his grace will act in saving ways in many lives. And ultimately, in all this God will get all the glory, as he deserves.

“There is only ONE God: Lessons from the Plagues” Part I – Exodus 7-10 (Sermon Summary)

There are only two main characters in the whole plague narrative: God (with Moses and Aaron being God's agents to do what God commands) and Pharaoh. And the whole point of the plague story is to impress us with one main lesson – that the Lord alone is God, and that everyone must know and accept that he alone is God. See for example Exodus 7:5, 17, 8:10, 22, 9:13-15, and 10:1-2.

In the plagues we see God doing several things to demonstrate his "God-ness." First, in sending the plagues God effectively executes the so-called Egyptian gods. Many, if not all, of the plagues are direct assaults against domains that the Egyptians thought were controlled by their gods. So for example, in turning the Nile into blood, God essentially destroyed the Egyptian river gods who were thought to rule over the Nile River.

Second, in sending the plagues God decreates the world, instead of creating and sustaining the world. The plagues were an unraveling of the created order. In doing this God showed how much the world depends on his sustaining power, and what would happen if God related to the world in a different capacity.

Finally, in sending the plagues God demonstrates his ability to bless and protect people or to judge people as he sees fit. God had complete control over every aspect of the plagues. This was especially shown in how he poured out the plagues on the Egyptians yet kept the Israelites free from them (see for example Exodus 8:23, 9:4-6, 26). Thus, the Israelites was set apart for protection and future blessing while the Egyptians were set apart for judgment and destruction.

Thus, in all this, God established the unique greatness of himself as Lord and God. And this unique greatness we later see in Jesus Christ. Jesus called himself "I am" (John 8:58), clearly identifying himself as the Yawheh of the Hebrew Scriptures, the one true Lord God of the universe. He showed his power over creation by commanding the wind and the rain, turning water into high quality wine, walking on water, and making trees wither on command (cf Col 1:16). Most especially, he showed his power over creation by displaying his power over death. He raised people from the dead and he raised himself from the dead.

And Jesus also protected and blessed some while others he judged. We often miss this aspect of Jesus, this aspect of him also judging people. For while Luke 19 does tell us that Jesus came to seek and save the lost, this only describes the intent of his first appearance in human history. In his second appearance, Jesus will come to judge and destroy all those who continue to defy him. He will come to "tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty" (see Rev 19).

This is the hard edge of the message of Jesus, namely, that his message is not just about saving people and bringing them to God but also about judgment and the warning that ultimately there are only two sides, either being with God or against God. When Jesus comes again we will either be standing with Jesus as part of his royal court and army, celebrating his reign as Lord and King, or we will be bound before him, being thrown into the depths of darkness because of how, like Pharaoh, we continued to defy him and his rightful Lordship.

The story of the plagues should startle us and warn us. Right now is the timee to respond to God and take the flag that is Jesus and plant it at the center of your life. In so doing, we worship God as the rightful Lord God, as we were meant to do, and as he rightfully deserves.

What are your thoughts? What do you think it means for God to be the one Lord God in your life?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

“But What Happens When People Don’t Listen to God?” Exodus 4:18-6:30 (Sermon Recap)

It can be extremely frustrating when you sense that people are not really listening to you. And it is especially frustrating when people aren't listening to you who really should be listening to you. Parents regularly face this with their kids. Kids should listen to their parents. But many times they don't, and this can be frustrating as we then see them going in directions that we know they will later regret.

However, just because your kids aren't listening to you one day does not mean that you stop being their parent. In fact, the mark of a good parent is when you are able to still lead and guide your children even when they aren't really listening to you. You do so because you are their parent, and that always remains the same, even when they aren't listening to you.

What we have in Exodus 4:18-6:30 is a whole section of Scripture where God is setting things up to save his people, the Israelites. During this process they experience some apparent setbacks and face some major difficulties. The Israelites soon become frustrated and begin to doubt God and even stop listening to what he was telling them.

So what does God do? Well, just because God's people aren't listening to God doesn't make God any less their God. Instead, God makes clear that the situation they were facing would be an occasion for them to see just much God truly is God, and specifically their God. This is in essence the main theme for this section of Scripture – to show that God is the Lord God, and he is the Lord God especially for the salvation of his people.

Some examples of people not listening to God in this section of Scripture are:

1. Moses' failure to circumcise his son (Exodus 4:24-26). Circumcision was a required rite for God's people. It was a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. Moses' failure to obey God in circumcising his son was essentially a rejection of this covenant. God was fully ready to judge Moses for this but Moses gets saved when his wife steps in and does what Moses was supposed to have already done.

2. Pharaoh rejects God's command to let Israel go. Pharaoh saw himself as equal to the Lord (see his sarcastic response in Exodus 5:2). For Pharaoh there is no "thus says the Lord" (Exodus 5:2), there is only "thus says Pharaoh" (Exodus 5:10). Pharaoh reinforces this point by making the Israelites work even harder, forcing them to find straw in order to make their daily quota of bricks (Exodus 5:10-11).

3. The Israelites doubt God in the wake of Pharaoh's actions, even though they had already witnessed several powerful signs that God was with Aaron and Moses (see Exodus 4:29-31). It's as if they no longer saw themselves as God's people but as Pharaoh's slaves, and so their main concern was to make sure that things didn't get worse for them as slaves.

4. Moses again doubts God after all these setbacks. At this point he wonders why God sent him to Egypt in the first place!

God in response shows Moses how none of these setbacks will get in the way of his plans. God is still God, and he is still in charge. Several times in Exodus 6:1-8 God states, "I am the Lord." God is stating that everything that has happened and will happen is meant first and foremost to remind his people and to show the world that he alone is the Lord God. There are also a number of "I will" statements in these verses. God is stating his intention to follow through on everything he's promised concerning his people. He will save and redeem them, he will adopt them as his own people, and he will bless them. All of this will be entirely God's work. God will get the credit for every aspect of their salvation and future blessing.

The Israelites sadly remained discouraged and depressed, even after Moses relayed God's words to them (Exodus 6:9-13). Difficult situations can deeply affect us and often threaten to break our spirit. However, God still speaks. God still gave the charge to Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. He still intended to accomplish his purposes.

In the end, it is all about God. He alone is the Lord God - self-existing, self-sustaining, mighty and strong, able to do all that he wants, even to a supposedly powerful man like Pharaoh. And this powerful, mighty, Lord God shows who he is especially in relationship to his people, and especially when he acts to save his people for himself. He does this even when they don't listen to him and doubt him.

This is the kind of thing God has always done and still does today. God still declares, "I am God. I am the Lord God. There is no other besides me. And I am the Lord God who is still shaping and forming a people for himself." Today the people of God are called the church. And the Bible tells us great things about the church – for example, that we are God's children and that we are God's special possession. But all those things are true of the church not because of any great listening habits on our end. They are true not because we are so much smarter or more spiritual than the Israelites were. No, God's people are made God's specially chosen and blessed people in the same way that it has always happened, namely, through God taking the initiative and acting as God for the saving sake of his people.

See for example Romans 8:28-32. Verse 28 tells us how "all things" are brought together for good for God's people. All things includes all our difficult circumstances. It includes all the times we disobey God and all the times we fail to listen to God. God is able to take all those things and still work out good for us. Why is this? Because we were "called according to his purpose."


Indeed, God foreknew us and predestined us (v.29) so that ultimately we might say, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (v.31). What we are seeing here is God's relentless, dedicated pursuit of his people. There is nothing that can get in the way of God grabbing people for himself. This is why Jesus came. He came because God sent him, so that through Jesus God might forever secure a people for himself, sons and daughters who are siblings with Christ in God's family.

As a believer in Christ, you may at times feel unsure about whether or not you belong to God. You may doubt whether or not God is truly your God and if he has acted to save you. You may feel like God really has forgotten all about you and that he's not really on top of things, especially when it comes to your life. So where can we find the assurance we need? It's Jesus who gives it to us in John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out."

Thus, God gets all the credit for saving us and keeping us saved as his people and him as our God. And thus, we have all the security and assurance we need for our salvation and all the blessings that God promises for those he saves through Jesus. We also have the encouragement and motivation we need in order to really live and stand out in our world as God's people.

Truly, only a Lord God could save a people like us! In fact, the initial failures of Moses and Aaron set things up so that it would be clear that it was the LORD GOD who was saving his people, and it is only the LORD GOD who is able to save his people.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

“God Tells Moses to ‘God Up’” Exodus 4:1-17 (Sermon Recap)

Moses had major doubts about his ability to do what God asked of him during his meeting with God at the burning bush. His doubts are frankly not all that surprising. God regularly asks people to do big, hard things, and usually to do these things means going in directions where we feel weak and inadequate and where there is some risk to us.

Why does God do this? Couldn't he check out how we test out in our personality test and our strength finder quiz and then make sure that whatever he calls us to do lines up with where we feel the strongest and most comfortable? Well, the reason for this is because God is not looking for us to do things because of who we are but because of who he is. In everything he calls us to he wants us to have to "God up." By "God up" I am talking about doing things out of the fullness of the Spirit of God, where the question that constantly drives us is, "How much more can God do through me?" Where the big things that happen in our church and in our city do not make people more aware of how gifted and talented and strategic our church is but instead make people more aware of how gifted and talented and strategic God is! Where the people around us are sometimes dumbfounded that God could accomplish such big and amazing things in and through a humble, simple, even insignificant church like us. In so much of what we do we ask ourselves, "Can I do this? What do I bring to the table?" To get to the level of doing big Godlike things in our world, we must begin to say, "We've got God at the table! So let's go and do as much as he will let us do!"

Unfortunately, our strong natural bent is to become overwhelmed by fears and doubts that lead us to think that we really can't do all that God wants of us. These fears and doubts lead to a kind of spiritual paralysis. This is where Moses is at during his meeting with God. Moses gives three objections to what God wants in Exodus 4:1-17. In his mind these objections should show God that what he wanted of Moses did not fit with his strengths and his comfort level, so it made no sense for Moses to move forward in the direction to which God was calling him.

God though had answers for every one of Moses' objections, answers which we do well to consider when we begin to complain to God like Moses did.

Objection #1 is found in Exodus 4:1 - Then Moses answered, "But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, 'The Lord did not appear to you.' "

God answers this objection Exodus 4:2-8 by giving Moses powerful signs to perform that will validate him in front of his people. However, these signs are given so that the people will not necessarily believe in Moses but believe in God and believe that God is really with Moses (Exodus 4:5). Again, this is all about God, not Moses.

It is interesting to note here that these signs were to be done through the use of Moses' shepherd staff. This would have been an ordinary stick, certainly not the kind of thing you would expect a mighty magician to use. The Egyptian magicians would have had elaborate charms and staffs and they would perform their "magic" through special words and incantations.

God however has Moses use his simple shepherd's staff and then has him do only what he tells him to do, nothing more, nothing less. The emphasis throughout Moses' mission in Egypt will be on God. Moses will be proven to be God's leader not because of any fancy spells or techniques. He will be proven to be God's leader through God's power working through Moses' simple actions.

Objection #2 is found in Exodus 4:10 - But Moses said to the Lord, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."

God's answer to this objection is very interesting. God doesn't say, "Man you're right. Let me send you to Toastmasters; they'll help you become a better public speaker. Oh, and here are some great books to read on public speaking." No, instead God tells Moses, "I'm the one who makes people able to speak! For that matter, I'm the one who makes people able to also hear or see!" (Exodus 4:11)

What was God doing here? He was once again emphasizing that doing big things in God's system depends not on us but on God. God makes this point by emphasizing his complete sovereignty over all things. This means then that God has complete control over human life, even specific aspects of human life like hearing and seeing and talking.

In hearing this we may be tempted to think that perhaps God has messed up a bit in how he made us. If he really is calling us to big things, then he should have given us a more engaging personality or intellectual ability or creative skill. We think to ourselves, "God, why did you make me this way? How can you expect me to talk to people about Jesus, or be a leader in my family and in my church, or to be a successful parent, when you made me this way?"

God's answer to Moses here is an answer to all these kinds of personal doubts and excuses. His answer is, "Yes, I made you. So who you are is no surprise to me! Now go and be who I've called you to be and do what I've called you to do, because I will be with you." Notice how in Exodus 4:12 God tells Moses that he will give him the words to speak and that he literally be "with his mouth" so that he can speak these words. God did not say, "Alright, I will take away your weaknesses so you can do what I need you to do." Instead, God leaves Moses' weaknesses in place and tells him to go, but with the conscious awareness that God is with him and that he will need to directly depend on God.

I believe God has designed each of us in uniquely imperfect ways so that have we will have regular opportunities to depend on God. 2 Cor 12:9 says as much. Our weaknesses are occasions for God's divine power to be perfected in us.

This is a new way to look at yourself. Instead of ignoring or being anxious about your weaknesses, you can look right at them and see them as unique, specially designed ways to "God up."

Objection #3 is found in Exodus 4:13 -
But he said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else."

There are some who, no matter what is said to them, just don't want to do what God tells them to do. This is what Moses does here. He tells God, "Look, I don't want to do this. Send someone else!" It's possible to focus so much on yourself that your fears and doubts overwhelm you, to the point that you let them become the operational God ruling over your life.

God's response comes in v.14-17. He is obviously angry with Moses. He easily could have wiped the slate clean and moved on from Moses to someone else. Yet God shows grace towards Moses. He encourages him by promising that Aaron will go with him and be Moses' spokesman; Aaron will do the public speaking for Moses. However, it is worth mentioning that Aaron does this only in the beginning; eventually it is Moses that does all the speaking. This is because God's way will always win out in the end, even when we disobey him. It just means that we will miss out on knowing the fullest expression of God and his power working in our lives. Thankfully, God does not let go of his people. Notice in the end of the conversation, in v.17, God says, "Don't forget the staff. Because YOU WILL be doing the signs I've given you." God will still work through Moses, even if he's not still quite ready for the tasks set before him.

God does big things, and he intends to do them through his people, and intends to do them in ways that are often uncommon, surprising, unexpected, and risky. Basically, all the ways that will make it clear that what's happening is not based ultimately on you or me but on him. For if depended on us, the reality is that nothing would ever happen. The Bible describes all people as being naturally sinful, meaning that we naturally doubt and disobey God.

Thus, to expect much of sinners would be like expecting a drowning person to be able to go and save another drowning person. If you are drowning, you'll find it impossible to do anything else but be overwhelmed by your fears and anxieties caused by the fact that you are drowning. It is no surprise then that our doubts and fears and anxieties get in way of much of what God wants of us. All of us have pushed God out of the center of our lives, and by doing so we lost the anchor we needed to stay afloat and so we spend our lives adrift, slowly being suffocated by our sin. How then can God use anyone in this world in any significant way?

Well, God can use us, and it's because God sent someone into the world who never did push God out of the center of his life, someone who was perfectly obedient to God and so never went adrift. This someone was Jesus Christ. Since Jesus was perfectly obedient, he was able to answer God's call to do the biggest thing of all – give up his life - so that his obedient perfect life would make up the difference in our failure to do all that God wants. When we put faith in Christ, we are wholly changed so that we can be free from the downward drowning pull of sin and the constant echoes ringing in our minds that tell us that we aren't good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, important enough, or cool enough to do much in this life. This is because faith in Christ brings Christ into our life. And because Christ is the Son of God, that means we now have God in our life. Not just with us, but in us. Faith in Jesus then is the means by which every person can God up!

This makes the ultimate difference for us. Moses had the promise that God would be with him, which was a great promise, and it really was all he needed in order to do what God wanted. But through Jesus, we have the promise of God actually being in
our lives. So now we can truly do all that God calls us to. We can be salt of the earth. We can be God's witnesses. We can be God's ambassadors. We can speak and act with all boldness, even through our weaknesses.

And what people will notice when they interact with us is what they noticed when they interacted with Peter and John. In the eyes of that culture, Peter and John were uneducated, common men. They should not have been able to do the big and bold things they were doing. So what was the difference? The people "recognized that they had been with Jesus." (Acts 4:13)

Embrace all of how God has made you, especially your weaknesses. Bring them to the cross of Jesus; by doing so you are saying, "This can't be about me. It's got to be about you, and it's got to be about Jesus in me for you."

What kind of amazing surprises would God bring about in your life if every day, you took one big weakness or one big anxiety or one big doubt, gave it over to God, and asked him to transform it through Jesus into a big expression of God's power working through you?

It would be something special, wouldn't it?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Revival in Phoenix Part I (Sermon Recap)

Revival is sought by many, but not rightly understood by many. Indeed, what many call revival is in reality just superficial experiences, more emotionally driven and spiritually authentic. In contrast, true revival always brings real long-lasting transformation. As Iain Murray writes in his book Revivals and Revivalism, "Every true revival begins in the church and a proof of the genuineness of the work is that it does not leave believers where they were before. They are filled with new wonder, joy and praise, with a new sense of the privilege of serving God, and with renewed energy that comes from being constrained by the love of Christ." Revival is really happening when people's old selves are being crucified such that they come away living new lives in an obvious and ongoing way.

How might this begin to happen? It will happen as we better understand who God is and who we are. Indeed, the word "revival" implies that someone is going from one state to another state (i.e. from being unconscious to conscious). So also spiritual revival will mean us waking up out of the sleep of moral and spiritual apathy and becoming much more aware of God and ourselves.

What then of God and ourselves should we be more aware? I believe it is one basic truth, namely that God is holy and that we in relation to this God are unholy rebels. To say that God is holy is to say that God is utterly unique and distinct. He is set apart from all things in perfect excellence, goodness, and beauty. God's holiness is the one attribute of God in the Bible that gets repeated three times in a row, to emphasize how much this attribute describes the essence of God. This is seen for example in Isaiah 6:3. Note also in this verse that a connection is made between God's holiness and glory ("Holy, holy, holy is the Lord…the whole earth is full of his glory!") In fact, the Bible regularly makes a connection between God's unique existence as a holy God and this resulting in some expression of glory and praise. See for example 1 Kings 8:10-11, 1 Chronicles 16:9-10, and Revelation 4:8-11. The Revelation passage is especially informative. God is acknowledged as holy and totally unique in his existence (Rev 4:8). Because this is the case, he naturally deserves all the glory and honor. And in particular, everything that he creates should give him glory and honor.

Let's be sure to grasp this point. All created things are meant to point to their creator in some way. The more finely crafted the created thing, the more attention it should bring to its creator. A well written, bestselling book naturally brings praise and honor to its author. Several artistic masterpieces will inevitably bring renown and fame to the name of artist who made those masterpieces.

The Lord God has been eternally perfect in his distinctiveness and uniqueness. He decided to further display his eternal perfection, his holiness, by creating everything in the universe. But then, in particular, he decided to place a unique stamp of himself, his image, upon one being in all the universe – mankind. Man then is God's masterpiece. Our fine and unique craftsmanship should naturally point to the excellence of our Creator.

For example, while all the creations of Leonardo Da Vinci are notable, the Mona Lisa still continues to be an especially potent display of the unique talent of Da Vinci. People are consistently drawn to look at this unique masterpiece in the Louvre museum, and in doing so they are drawn ultimately to give praise to Da Vinci. Here is the purpose then of each human life – to see the evidence of God finely crafting every part of you, and to rejoice in and praise God for your expert design as a masterpiece that displays the glory of your God. We find the most meaning in our lives when we are giving the maximum amount of glory and honor and praise to our holy Lord.

The real horror here comes when we realize that instead of being masterpieces displaying God's glory we instead have become like ugly, broken down clunker cars leaking oil wherever we go. We rightfully belonged to God but have wrenched ourselves away from him by focusing in ourselves through our words, actions, and desires. Doing so has horribly damaged our God-displaying ability. And the Bible makes clear – our God defying and God rejecting ways are nothing less than a direct personal attack against God. As Colossians 1:21 makes clear, we are alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds against God. Romans 5:10 is even more clear, telling us bluntly that we are enemies of God. Sin is not primarily an offense against other people. It is an offense against God. See for example David's view of his adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent cover-up. He writes that it is against God primarily that he sinned (Ps 51:3-4).

The lie so many people live is that they really aren't so bad, especially compared with other people. God's answer to that in the Bible? We are all bad! "None is righteous, no not one, no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Sin ultimately makes us worthless! In light of this, the question we should ask is not, "Is it fair for God to judge us?" The question we should ask is, "Why wouldn't God judge us?!" Our worth came from our creation by God but we have totally squandered and wrecked our worth through our rebellion against him. It is as if we were a multimillion dollar mansion that is now falling apart and worth nothing due to our arrogant and foolish misuse of the mansion. The best that can be done is to just bulldoze the whole property.

We are by all appearances living in the days described by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-4. These are days when many think of themselves as being good or godly, yet in reality they are far from any true goodness or godliness. There are many who have the appearance of being godly Christians but none of the power of it. Many in the church have a spirituality that is like a well-dressed corpse. There is lot of fancy clothes being worn that bring lots of attention, but the reality is we are admiring a dead person.

What's needed in the church today is real honesty. It's a real honesty rooted in humbleness and an almost desperate need to get past the superficial surface behaviors and instead get to the heart, to see the pride, selfishness, and self-righteousness that's rooted there, and to then kill it. The Bible gives us great encouragement along these lines, for we are told that for those who are humble, who are truly aware and ashamed of their sin, God will be ready to meet them where they are at and bring revival to their hearts (see Isa 57:15). God's word is a crucial and practical means by which this occurs (see Isa 66:2). As we read lots of God's word into our lives, letting it teach and convict us, and then pray God's word back to God in humble prayerful confession, we will find God. For God's word is truth, and thus meditating deeply on his word will us truly understand God and ourselves, and such understanding will always draw God near to us and revive us (see Ps 145:18, 19:7).

And what will God do when he draws near to us as we cry out to him? What will he reveal to us so that we might have revived hearts? What God will do is show us who he truly is. What he will do is show us Jesus. The hope we have that we will experience a true revival within our lives, within our churches, and within our city, comes as we look at God and see how he acted to save us out of sinful rebellion and reconcile us to himself through Jesus (Romans 5:10). As Richard Lovelace writes in Dynamics of Spiritual Life, "The cross is the perfect statement both of God's wrath against sin and of the depth of his love and mercy in the recovery of the damaged creation and its damagers."

More than ever we need God and even more than ever we need Jesus! Any hope we have for revival comes as we put our faith in Christ, linking ourselves to him in his death to give the final deathblows to our sin and living anew in his resurrection and so forever have freedom over the power of sin.

Obviously, these are things only God can bring about. Only God can really change hearts and make them brand new and bring revival. It is this divine action in people's lives that is the foundational step for any true revival.

So, what are your thoughts? What will revival look like in our city? In our church? In your own life?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

“Meet the Lord God” Exodus 3 (Sermon Recap)

All sorts of things can get in the way of us moving forward in life. Things like past failures, personal doubts, fears of the unknown. The way we fight through these things and move forward is by knowing who God is. This is what God does for Moses in Exodus 3, and in particular in Exodus 3:14-15. In this passage God reveals his name to Moses. God refers to himself as Yahweh, which literally means "I AM," or more fully, "I AM WHO I AM" (Yahweh is usually translated as LORD in our English Bibles). God's name reveals two things about him.

1. God's name describes God's unique existence

This point is strongly hinted at with the uniqueness of the burning bush and even more strongly shown by the instruction that Moses was now on "holy ground." To be in God's presence is to discover that God is holy, in other words, he is wholly distinct and separate from us. God is someone who so uniquely is who he is, Moses could not even look at him directly and had to stay at a distance from him.

But also in God's very name itself – "I AM WHO I AM" – it becomes clear that God is a unique being. God is the one who always IS. He has always been who he is and always will be who he is. God is fully self-existing, self-sufficient, and self-sustaining. Certainly there is a bit of a paradox here. God invites us to know him by revealing his name to us. But in so doing God shows us that really he can't be fully known by us. He is utterly unique and completely incomparable to anything in all creation. A truth like this should fill any honest person with great awe and reverence for God.

2. God's name highlights God's special presence

God not only just IS, he just IS especially for and with his people. Several times in chapter 3 God is described as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" or as the "God of your fathers." God is showing Moses how he was especially present with his ancestors. The promise now is that just as God was with them he now will be especially with Moses and later with all of Israel (v.12 – "I will be with you."). God then is a God who personally and particularly involves himself with his people. He is a God who exists with all his full GODness alongside his people no matter what they may face.

This is a wonderful thing to consider, but it also presents a problem for us. If God is as fully GOD as he has revealed himself to be, then none of us will be able to stand in his presence. We would be overwhelmed by him in an instant. Fortunately for us, God knew of this problem and then addressed it by essentially changing himself. God came down to earth and took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was very clear about who he was. Before a crowd of Jews he proclaimed himself to be "I AM" (John 8:58). This was a clear statement by Jesus that he was Yawheh, the great I AM WHO I AM. Indeed, in Jesus what we have is God himself personally coming to mankind so that each of us might have the opportunity to experience the full unique existence and presence of God in our lives.

This gracious act of God should lead us to three responses.

1. Faith in Christ – We can approach God

As Jesus says in John 8:24, "You [will] die in your sins…unless you believe that I am he." Our sins which keep us locked in place and away from God will end up eventually kill us. There is an alternative however. The alternative is to take the journey, or an exodus if you will, out of the living death of sin and to enter into life with God. The only way we can begin to take these steps forward and begin this relationship with God is by faith in Jesus. By "faith in Jesus" we mean to say that one must believe Jesus to be the LORD God and to acknowledge him as the LORD God over one's entire life.

2. Security in Christ – We stay with God

When Jesus was born it was the fulfillment of the ancient Jewish prophecy that there would one day be one who would be to humanity "Immanuel," which means, "God with us" (Matt 1:23). In Jesus we experience God with us in all of his GODness. Before Jesus God was with people, but there was nevertheless the constant reminder that there was still a fundamental separation between him and mankind, as seen in the tabernacle and temple system. In Jesus there is no longer any separation (cf 2 Cor 3:18, Heb 10:19-22). God is fully with each person who has acknowledged Jesus as their Yawheh.

This gives us great security and peace. All our past failures and present and future doubts begin to shrivel and fade away when you realize that there is only one timeline that matters – God's timeline – and in Christ you are forever tied into that timeline. To be with him means no longer being enslaved to the past, present, or future – you now view all things from his eternal vantage point.

3. Purpose in Christ – We now GO with God

Like Moses many of us might think, "Who am I? I'm a nobody." God tells us, "It's not about who you are but who I AM!" Things don't depend on our understanding of ourselves, they depend on our understanding of God. This understanding of God should then motivate us to get going and doing the things God wants of us. God revealed who he was to Moses so that he would then get going to Egypt. So also God reveals himself to us in Christ so that, after being encouraged and strengthened, we might then get going! In large part, in order for you to know for sure that God is with you, you will need to first step out in faith. Notice for instance in Exodus 3:12 that the sign that God was really with Moses would come after he had gone to Egypt and then led his people back to the Mount Horeb/Sinai. In Exodus 3:18-12 the full sense that God was with his people would come after everything had occurred in Egypt according to how God had predicted it would in these verses.

Thus, the best way to get the assurance that in Christ God is with you, with all his eternal GODness being behind you, is to go and start doing the big, radical, hard things that God wants done.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

“God Always Remembers” Exodus 2 (Sermon Recap)

The relationship between God and his people is often described in parent-child terms. We are to look on him as our Father. Certainly, having God as a Father causes us to have some big expectations of him. This is God we're talking about! Real life, however, makes us doubt God and makes us wonder if God truly is our Father, if he truly is someone who will, like any good father, follow through on what he promises us. Do we really have a God who notices us, pays attention us, and acts in accordance with what he promises us? Exodus 2 will go long way to showing us that we do indeed have this kind of God.

When Exodus 2 begins the situation remains desperate for the Israelites. Pharaoh the king of Egypt has instituted a nationwide program to drown every Hebrew boy. Into these horrible circumstances a baby is born. We would think that this baby would immediately be killed but the baby is miraculously saved and in fact adopted by one of the daughters of Pharaoh. This boy gets named Moses, and he grows up in the royal court getting the finest education a person could get back then. By v.11 he is full grown adult man, 40 years old according to Acts 7:23. Moses seems like the person in perfect position to save the Israelites from their slavery and oppression under Pharaoh. In just one act, however, everything falls apart. Moses kills an Egyptian who was beating one of Israelites and the word gets out on what he did. Moses is forced to flee the country and go to Midian. There he gets connected to a family, marries one of the daughters of the family, and settles in for the next forty years working as a shepherd.

So Moses for the time being is out of the picture. Exodus 2:23 tells us that the king of Egypt then dies – perhaps now things might change? Sadly, they do not. The people of Israel remain enslaved and oppressed. Things seem to be over for these people. But the truths contained in Exodus 2:23-25 tell us differently. These people will survive and be set free, and it's because of the relationship they have with God. Here are a few things to note from these verses:

1. God's people must cry out to God. When a kid gets hurt they immediately cry out for the parent. This cry can be very loud at times and probably even a bit over dramatic. But what parent would have it any other way? The cry of a child to their parent is a cry that invites, that begs, for the parent to come into that child's experience. It's a cry through which the parent is able to bring healing if needed ("Here's some bandages Johnny"), encouragement ("You're going to be okay!") and context ("It's really not that bad. Look, you don't have any scratches on you.")

In prayer, we are able to cry out to God as a child cries out to their Father. And in so doing we will see the Lord move towards us to bring the healing, the encouragement, and the context we need for whatever situation we are in. The problem today is that too many of us are crying out to everything but God for help. Israel had this problem later on when instead of crying out to God they began to cry out to other nations for help. People today cry out for help to trendy self-help books, to horoscopes, to alcohol, to drugs, to various relationships or people. The problem inherent in all this is that none of these things can really give us the outside unbiased perspective we need on life since they all are themselves deeply part of the life of this world. But even more importantly, these things are unable to give real transforming help in and of themselves. In fact, I would argue that no matter what we do or where we turn it all largely ends up back in our laps, with the onus on us to deal with things on our own strength.

God gives us a much better direction to turn to – one that can give us real help. God invites us to turn to himself. See for example Ps 18:6 and Ps 121:1-2. Real life, with all its fears and doubts and anxieties, is a unique opportunity to connect with God. It is a regular means by which we can really see how powerful it is to have God as a Father. Indeed, to live and grow as a Christian means regularly crying out to God saying, "God, my Father! Help me every day!"

2. God hears the cries and responds to the cries of his people. Notice the words used to reinforce this for us in Ex 1:24-25. We are told that God heard and God saw. Like any good dad, God's senses are specially tuned to his kids. In fact, before we could even give attention to ourselves God was giving deliberate attention to us. As we are told in Eph 1, God "choose us in him before the foundation of the world," and "predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ."

We are also told that God knew. The idea here is that God entered into the situation of the Israelites. He didn't just know about what was going, God personally resonated with what they were going through.

This of course is not the only time God has done this. Indeed, the story of Jesus is the story of God entering into our world and knowing us, knowing what we go through, knowing why we cry out and what it is to cry out. There's nothing that anyone has experienced - no rejection, no depression, no heartache, no trial, no illness, no temptation, nothing! - that God can't resonate with at some level.

Finally, we are told that God remembered his covenant. Here is the key phrase. This phrase tells us that we have a God who will ACT. He will always follow through on his promises. To say that God "remembers" is not to say that he had forgotten about Israel and all of sudden needed to have his memory jogged a bit. Rather, to say that God remembers is to say that he always does what he promises to those he is in relationship with. The whole history of God in relationship with his people can be described as a series of promises and fulfillments. God promises, then he remembers and acts at the right moment in fulfillment of his promises.

Thus, in Exodus 2 we see God remembering the promises he made way back when to Abraham (cf Gen 12:2-3, 15:13-16), which got passed on to his son Isaac, then to his son Jacob, and finally all the way down the line to the Israelites in Egypt. God remembered them, which is to say that God would now begin to accomplish the great things he had promised to do for them.

But an even better example for us is Luke 2:25-35. There we read about an old man named Simeon who was waiting for God to remember the biggest promise of all. This was a promise to bring a salvation for all peoples. It was promise whereby God's people would be made up of both Jews and Gentiles. Simeon knew and rejoiced that God had in fact remembered his promise the moment he set his eyes on baby Jesus.

Jesus provides the way by which we become part of God's people and can now look to God as our Father. In Jesus we can cry our hearts out and know that God will hear us, see us, know us, and respond to us. Because of this, we can know that if we have Jesus in our life we have a Dad who will give us the healing, encouragement, and context for every struggle and oppression and difficulty we face. This can, and should, release us to cry out boldly to God every day for his help and to live boldly for God every day, leaning on his help.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

“God Is There (Even When He Seems to Not Be There)” Exodus 1:1-21 (Sermon Recap)

The first two chapters of Exodus stand out because of how little mention there is of God. He seems for the most part to be completely absent and largely passive. This begs the question - what should we do or think when we expect God to show up big for us and he doesn't show up? God's people, the Israelites, had every reason to think that God would show up big for them. Exodus picks up right from where Genesis left off, and based on where Genesis ends we would think that Exodus would immediately launch into the story of God's people triumphantly returning to the land God had promised to their ancestors.

This however is not what happens. The Exodus story begins with the Israelites still in Egypt and being brutally oppressed by Egyptians under the direction of Pharaoh the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was afraid of how many Israelites there were in Egypt, believing that they were a potential future threat to the empire. So his plan was to make sure they remained under Egyptian power. His plan began with enslaving the people, and soon escalated to an effort to slowly decimate them by killing their newborn boys. To do this he enlisted two Hebrew midwives. However the midwives we are told "feared God" (Ex 1:17). They recognized God's authority over all things and thus refused to obey the king's commands. Their fear of God is recognized by God and ends up blessing these midwives with families. And despite the king's efforts, the Israelites continue to increase in number (Exo 1:20).

How then should we view all this? Often, the reality is that while God's people today, the church, have great ideas and plans and great expectations of God, roadblocks come up, problems arise, and we find ourselves feeling quite alone and wondering where God is and what he's doing. The temptation is to give up and resign ourselves to defeat. What Exodus 1 shows us is that God is there and that he's always there with his people, even when it most seems like he's not there. In fact, throughout this chapter we can see God's "invisible" hand working. The Israelites kept growing even under oppression only because of God. The midwives were kept safe and were successful in their efforts only because of God.

It would be much later when God finally began to do big things on behalf of the Israelites in visible and obvious ways. It certainly happened much later than the people wanted. But it happened when God wanted, which means it happened at the perfect time so that the most perfect display of his greatness would be witnessed and experienced by his people.

Suffering and God's seeming absence often seem to be preconditions to God working great triumphs on behalf of his people. This first story in Exodus is one example of this, and it points ahead to an evener great example of this in the story of Jesus. Those around Jesus definitely thought God was going do big things through him. Jesus was the Son of God after all! But then Jesus was arrested, beaten, and crucified. And on the cross Jesus hung there forsaken, alone, abandoned, crushed. God seemed totally absent. If there was any moment to doubt God and his promises it was that moment of Jesus hanging on the cross.

Yet this bloody shameful death served as the setup for the greatest and biggest act of God in human history, namely, the rising of Christ from the dead, and his victory over all evil and death and sin. The story of Jesus reinforces and amplifies the main lesson to be learned in this beginning story of Exodus – that even in suffering, even in doubt, even in disappointment and discouragement, God is there, he's always there, working on behalf of his people and for the sake of his great name.

To become a Christian means looking through all the evils done to you and all the evils you've done to others until you see the God who was there, who was always there, steadily leading you to himself. It's seeing how the first big act of God in your life was setting Jesus before you and saying, "Trust me by trusting in what I did for you through him."

This trust sets a pattern now for our whole lives. To accomplish God's mission will for mean each of us a deliberate trusting and fearing of God. We will only be able to move forward with confidence when we know and trust that in the end God wins and that nothing can threaten that. Indeed, with only two midwives God was able to stop the murderous efforts of the mightiest king of that time. And above all, God was able to use his Son Jesus to stop every evil, dark, sin infested power from ruling over our lives.

This is a great encouragement! We should be honest though. It is likely that we will go through suffering and even doubt and discouragement before experiencing the fulfillment of God's promises for us. However, we will persevere, we will fear and obey God and stay "on mission," if we look with strong focus and dependence on Jesus. Jesus is the constant reminder that God is there and that he is always there working.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

A Thought(full) and Purpose(full) Community - Remember the Mission Sunday (Sermon Recap)

Last Sunday we took time to consider what kind of church God would have us be and what God would have us do as a church. More specifically, we asked, "How does the Lord want Roosevelt to fit into his mission to transform all things and bring everything under the reign of Jesus?"

I believe the charge to Roosevelt is twofold. First, we must be known as a thought(full) community. By "thought(full)" we are saying that we want to be a community that is full of thoughts about God. Over and over in the Bible we see that God is deeply concerned to have his people have their minds and hearts filled with thoughts, remembrances, reflections, meditations, upon God. Some examples include Exodus 3:15, 13:3, 1 Chron 28:9, Ps 1:2, 119:15-16, 77:11-12, Matt 16:22-23, Phil 4:8, Heb 10:16. There is one subject however that should tie all the thoughts of minds and hearts together, and that is Jesus. Jesus is the key work of God that must be at the center of all our reflections. See for example Eph 3:14-19, 2 Cor 4:6, Col 3:1-2.

Practically speaking, this means the mission of our church will always be tied into digging deep into God's word, for that's where we find what God wants us to think about, and more specifically continually meditating upon the gospel, for that is the main storyline of God's word.

Thoughts full of God must lead us in a certain direction. So, secondly we must be known as a purpose(full) community. By "purpose(full)" we are saying that we want to be a community that is full of purpose for God and specifically full of purpose for Christ. So for instance in Col 3:1-2 we are directed to have our minds set towards the direction of Christ. In so doing we then must be actually seeking Christ and the things that are associated with Christ (v.1). Some other examples of purpose set alongside thoughts are 2 Cor 10:5 and Phil 3:14-15. Arguably Matt 28:18-20 can be seen through this grid as well. Jesus gives his disciples two things to set their minds and hearts on, the fact that all authority in the cosmos belongs to Jesus and the fact that he will always be with them. Now, with those two facts in mind, the disciples are given a purpose, to go and make disciples of Jesus from all the nations.

Practically speaking this means that the mission of our church should be directed towards seeing as many people as possible encounter Christ for themselves. With that in mind I set before us the vision of a Roosevelt community that is known for boldly and constantly connecting with those who don't know Christ and boldly and constantly speaking the gospel to them. I have in mind a church where the majority of us, at least 60% of us, are the kind of people who are constantly talking to other people about Jesus. Some will of course be better than others at this. But all of us at the very least can be asking people, "Hey, this may be an awkward question but I want to know, 'What do you think about Jesus?'"

This could be a very big missional step forward for our church. Be praying that we take this step with confidence that the Lord truly wants to bless this kind of thing. By God's grace, let's be known as a church so full of Jesus that we just can't shut up about him.

Friday, September 11, 2009

“You Are My Lord” Psalm 16 (Sermon Recap)

Without Jesus there is little reason to trust God with your life. But because of what Jesus represents, namely the victory of God over everything – every evil, every sin, every difficulty, we now have every reason to trust God and believe in him by first believing in Jesus.

But what happens after you've trusted in Jesus? What happens next after you say, "You are my Lord" (Ps 16:2)? Psalm 16 offers us at least four answers.

The first answer is in the last part of Ps 16:2, and it is foundational to all the other answers offered in this psalm. When God becomes your God, you will feel the full goodness of the Lord. To say that the Lord is good is to say that all of life is meant to show his goodness. But even more, as this verse points out, it's to say that any time spent without the Lord is not good. Good does not exist apart from the Lord. Any consideration of something good begins and ends with God. As D.A. Carson puts it in For The Love of God: Vol 1, "In comparison with knowledge of our Maker and Redeemer, nothing else is worth very much, whether in this life or in the life to come. Apart from the Lord, we 'have no good thing.'"

Sadly, we so very often try to find good from things apart from the Lord. We do so because those things (things like sex or power or money or attention) seem to hold some promise of good for us. The Bible however confronts us with a much different reality - nothing can give us good unless it first comes through God. We cannot experience true and full goodness unless we are living in a relationship with God as our Lord. Everything else we might run after will only bring sorrows (Ps 16:4).

Secondly, when God becomes your God, you will feel the full delight with the Lord. There is first the delight of being with other people who also have made God their God (Ps 16:3). This is the delight of being in community with people who hold in common a serious commitment to God as their Lord. The real source of this delight however is the Lord himself (Ps 16:11). We should not overlook the bold claim made in Ps 16:11. This verse is telling us that with God there is complete, full, maximum joy! There are eternal things to enjoy with God. The joys we experience now all eventually end, whether it is the short term joy of meal that ends with the completion of that meal or the longer term joy of a relationship that ends with the death of one of the partners in the relationship. With God however such endings do not exist. Having God be your God means that there are things we will able to enjoy and delight in with him forever.

Thirdly, when God becomes your God, you will feel full security because of the Lord (Ps 16:8-10). When the Lord becomes your Lord, you gain the sound confidence of knowing that God has you and that there is nothing that can take away his presence in your life. You are safe in life and you are safe even in death.

How can we know this for sure? For this answer we look in the New Testament. Peter and Paul both quoted from Ps 16:8-10 and tied this passage to the resurrection of Jesus. God raising Jesus from the dead was his promise to us that just as he did not leave Jesus in the grave but raised him from the dead, so also will he raise all his people from the dead. Jesus' resurrection is a promise to all those who've made the Lord their God that they also will be set free from death spiritually and physically. Spiritual freedom means that we never need to fear that we will be apart from God. He will always keep us safe and secure with him. Physical freedom means that our very bodies will be kept safe from the power of death and in fact be made brand new.

God did not abandon Jesus, and now through Jesus and our relationship with God, neither will we who have believed in Jesus.

Fourthly and last, when God becomes your God, you will feel full satisfaction with the Lord (Ps 16:5-6). To be satisfied with the Lord is to say that the Lord is who you choose for yourself. And once you have him, you are fully satisfied. Being in the same space with God is a satisfying and pleasant experience. To have God as your God is to always have enough. What he has given you has "fallen into pleasant places." You have a "beautiful inheritance." You have God!

For truly, there is there is nothing in this world, nothing in this universe, more important than having God be your God. Clearly this can't be in just name only. For God to really be your God, and for you to then experience the goodness and delight and security and satisfaction that is only found in him, you have to set him before you as it says in v.8. Your heart must be open to his counsel and instruction. This means shaping your life in such a way that it is clear that that God is indeed God over your life.

How can you be sure that you are in fact shaping your life in this way? Hebrews 12:2 tells us about the necessity of looking to Jesus, who sits at the right hand of the throne of God. In looking to Jesus, in depending on the power of his death to kill all the wrongness we have within us and living in the power of his resurrection to keep all that wrongness forever dead within us, we will go in the right direction, we will have God be truly our God, and we will experience the full richness of all of what that means.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

“How Long Lord?” Psalm 13 (Sermon Recap)

What do we do when it seems like God is not there? When it seems like God has closed up shop and isn't coming to the answer the door, especially when we need him the most? Psalm 8 addresses just these sorts of times. The psalm deals honestly with the pain and angst that comes when we travel through what the Puritans called "the dark night of the soul" or "the soul's wintertime." But it's from that honest place that this psalm then points us to the Lord and helps us see how we can in fact still trust in him, even in our most difficult troubles.

But first we start with lament (Ps 13:1-2). "Lament" is the word you use to describe what you feel like when you are slowly disintegrating and your world is falling in on you and all you can do is cry out to God, "How long?! How long?! How long must this go on?!" There are three things that bring David to lament in this psalm. First is God's seeming absence (Ps 13:1). Second is loneliness, naturally because God is absent (Ps 13:2a)). Third is defeat (Ps 13:2b), that sense that the enemy, whoever or whatever it is, has ultimately won the battle and stands in victory over your life.

Sadly, many people stop here. But lament is pointless and even pathetic unless it drives us even more to God. We must remember that the main issue here is, "Where is God?" Lament helps us express this honestly and even emotionally. But prayer is where lament begins to be worked out with possible answers.

So the next step in this journey must be prayer (Ps 13:3-4). It's important to see that this prayer emerges right out of the previous verses. In this prayer the psalmist is saying, "If I stay here in this place, I am overcome and fall down defeated and essentially "dead." The enemy will get the last word. This prayer is a cry out to God to not let this happen! God can't let the enemy win. He can't let the godless get the victory. And why can't he let this happen? It's because there is a relationship between God and the person praying. This is the important background to the prayer found in v.3. Notice what David says here. He is looking for answers not just from any God, he's looking for answers from "my God." While he can't figure out what God is doing, he knows that nevertheless God is the one and only place he must go to find support .

This is the one constant throughout this psalm and it gives us the direction we need to go if we are to get through the dark night of the soul. Frankly there are not many specific answers for why certain things happen to us. There are no clear answers, at least right now, for why some of us go through certain types of physical suffering or financial hardship or relational heartbreak or emotional pain. But our lament as we experience these things can still find a true and powerful resolution once we realize the powerful answer God has in fact given us. This answer is himself, and even more a relationship with him where we can see and know him for who he really is.

It's only when you've really seen and known God that you can end up ultimately in trust (Ps 13:5-6). Trust comes not so much from looking at your present circumstances but at the past. And what the past reveals is who God really is, namely, a God who is always loyal and committed to those with whom he is in relationship. To enter into a relationship with God is to enter into a commitment that God will never abandon. The Bible is full of examples of God's rock solid loving commitment to his people. Time and time again God has proven himself to be a God who saves and who will always save his people. He is a God who always has and always will do far more good towards those he loves than they could ever imagine or think.

It is in this God, then, whom we place our trust! It is in this God we can find hope and confidence and joy, for our hope and confidence and joy is based not on us but on him and our relationship with him. What's so great about this is that while our trust in God may be seem weak and feeble at times, it is still a reliable trust because it is based on God. The main question always is, have you put your trust in the Lord?

Remember, we trust in a Lord who knows what it is to cry out in lament. Consider the words of Jesus on the cross, "My God my God why have you forsaken me?" That is the cry of lament. This is the cry of someone who knows what it is feel abandoned, alone, and defeated. In Jesus what we are seeing is the Lord God allowing himself to be forsaken, to go through the dark night like we all must do, so that he might establish a safe path through that night. By following Jesus we can ourselves take that path and find a God in the end who we can trust and rejoice in.

Jesus is the key evidence of God's steadfast love towards us. Without the story of Jesus, we would not be wrong to say that life is dark and painful and meaningless. But with the story of Jesus, we can now say that while life is often dark, there is a light to help us walk through the darkness. While life is often painful, there is healing to help us endure it. While life often seems meaningless, there is in fact a bearer of life who has come and infused eternal meaning into our lives.

This is what the story of the gospel, the story of Jesus, does for all those who have believed in Jesus. Jesus gives our cries of "how long" power, because we can know for sure that God will and does hear our cries, and Jesus gives us our cries of "how long" confidence, and even joyful hope, because we can know for sure that God will answer them for our ultimate good in the end.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Don't Be Hating the Church

I loved this post from the blog, Between Two Worlds:

Kevin DeYoung, in Why We Love the Church (pp. 87-88, line breaks mine):
But then again, consistency is not a postmodern virtue. And nowhere is this more aptly displayed than in the barrage of criticisms leveled against the church.

The church-is-lame crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love.

They bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing.

They don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership.

They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirtysomethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets.

They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is ‘inbred.’

They want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances.

They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political.

They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them.

They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences.

They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think.

They want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members.

They want to be connected to history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week.

They call for not judging "the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people," and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.

HT: Mike Wittmer

Monday, August 17, 2009

Smoking fast

I still can't believe the new 100 meter record is 9.58. That's just crazy. If I raced Usain Bolt, even at my top running condition when I was running college track, he would not only beat me, he would have time to jog back to the start and beat me again!

See below to see the race yourself (or for a higher quality view of it see the Universal Sports video feed)

Friday, August 14, 2009

"You Are Mighty Lord" Psalm 8 (Sermon Recap)

Psalm 8 is a praise psalm that directs us to praise God because he is mighty (see Ps 8:1, mighty is the sense behind the word "majesty").

The Lord is mighty in three ways:
1. God is mighty over his enemies (Ps 8:2)
Children and infants are some of the weakest and smallest creatures in the world. Yet somehow from their lips comes praise that is strength enough to silence the enemies of God. This should be no surprise to us - it is the Lord's pattern to use weakness and helplessness to do some of his mightiest acts (cf 1 Cor 1:27).

2. God is mighty over creation (Ps 8:3-4)
All creation testifies to God's might. In fact, compared to God even the heavens are like play doh, easily shaped into being by his fingers. (cf Isa 40:26, Rom 1:20)

3. God is mighty over mankind (Ps 8:4-8)
Creation is insignificant compared to God, and man is insignificant compared to creation. This makes man vastly insignificant compared to God. When we consider the greatness of the universe it is really only human pride that should make us think that God should notice tiny specks like us.

And yet God, of his own will, has seen fit to notice man, moreover, to give man glory and honor far above even the greatest planet or star by making us in his image. He remembers us and has specially commissioned us to rule over and steward this world.

These truths imply that our rule should model how God rules. God rules with care and wisdom and does not abuse his rule. God is praised then when we also rule over the world and all its creatures with the same care and wisdom.

These truths also impact how we view other human beings. If man has been made "a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned...with glory and honor" (Ps 8:5) by God himself, then we must not act within the world in such a way that demeans and degrades other people. God is praised then when we take conscious steps to also be mindful of others and care for others, especially the weakest "others" in our world, just like God does. How are we being and acting mindfully of others in other parts of the world, of others down the street from us, of others in our church and in our family?

And so, in summary, God wants us to live lives that praise him and acknowledge his worth and his might. This is especially done through how we treat our world and other people in our world. Man however has consistently failed to do this. We care more for ourselves than for others. We are more given to take from others for our benefit. We seek to establish ourselves as mini gods.

Of course, the world regularly defies man's attempts to be god. Through things like war, natural disasters, and diseases we are reminded that while we have dominion over the world we don't have complete control over the world. Rather than being humans crowned with the Lord's glory and honor, we are sinners crowned with shame and dishonor.

The only correction to this is Jesus Christ. Jesus fulfilled the role that human beings were supposed to fill within this world. He was the one human being who was perfectly glorious and honorable, the one human being who died and then conquered death by rising again so that we human beings could again claim the full glory and honor for which we were created. This happens when we believe in Jesus, a process that basically involves us adopting the name of Jesus for ourselves and becoming a new human being in him. In Jesus all things are brought under our feet (cf 1 Cor 15:27). In Jesus many people can brought to glory as sons and daughters of the Lord God (cf Heb 2:6-10).

It is from this Jesus based footing that we can truly speak of the Lord being OUR Lord (Ps 8:1, 9) and we can truly act as his heirs in this world. We can now truly praise him and live praiseworthy lives.

What are your thoughts and observations about Psalm 8?

"The Lord's Reign" Psalm 2

While Psalm 1 showed us how worship of God means commitment to the Lord's teaching, Psalm 2 shows us that worship of God means commitment to the Lord's king. "Kingship" is an example of biblical typology - this is when a certain "type," usually a person or place or concept or event - get picked up and repeated throughout the Bible, often gaining added layers of meaning and significance as you move through redemptive history towards Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the focal point for most of the Old Testament types.

This dynamic is at play in Psalm 2. At one level the psalm is talking about an Israelite king who comes from the line of Israel's most famous king, King David. Back in 2 Sam 7, God had made promises to David that falls along the lines of what we see here, namely that God would be committed to David and that he would establish his throne forever. Psalm 2 picks up on this promise and affirms that God will be committed to the Davidic king. However, there is a deeper layer of meaning to discern concerning who this Davidic king is and what he represents.

At the outset of the psalm there is a strong affirmation of God's power (Ps 2:1-6). The nations plot to defy God and his king, but this is utter madness. The Lord will establish his king and his reign and no one can oppose him. The Davidic king himself is in a special relationship with God. He has the status of God's Son (Ps 2:7). He then is to rule on behalf of God, as his representative in the world. And in being God's Son he is given the whole world as his inheritance (Ps 2:8-9). Quickly we realize here that this is an uncommon king and an uncommon reign. Up to now we have expected that God's promise pertained only to the nations surrounding Israel. However, this promise concerns a worldwide rule over a worldwide kingdom. There is a sense of power and authority with this king and his reign. He will make sure that the world will finally, once and for all, come under the Lord's undisputed rule.

The only right response to the Lord and his king then is submission (Ps 2:10-12). Submission means a true fear and reverence of the Lord. God is not Big Bird or Barney. God is someone who lays claim to all the world, and to go against him means being completely crushed. God is the best in the world when comes to demolishing opposition. So serve the Lord with fear!

Submission though also means delighting in and enjoying God. As v.11 makes clear, we are invited to rejoice! Joy comes when we have fearfully submitted to God and then realized that this Lord we serve is not an evil dictator but rather a good and just ruler who makes space in his kingdom for anyone who wants to take refuge and find security.

We have a choice then - know the Lord's anger by rejecting his rule or know the Lord's blessing by submitting to him with respect and joy. Sadly the natural human tendency is to resist. This is where the Lord's king comes into play. For the Davidic king who fulfills the hope and potential of Psalm 2 is Jesus. He is the one true and full Son of God, the anointed one who accomplishes what was long ago promised by God (cf Acts 4:24-27, Rev 19:15-16). Submitting to the Lord really means submitting to King Jesus. One day Jesus will forever and definitively establish the rule of the Lord on the earth. How we will experience that rule then will depend on how we accept his King now. To live for yourself now is to experience the death of yourself, a death that will last forever under the Lord's punishment. But to die to yourself now, to submit to Jesus as the Lord's Son and King and thus to submit to the Lord's rule, is to come even now under divine blessing, with the promise of seeing it fully realized then.

What are your thoughts as you read through Psalm 2?

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

"The Lord's Way" Psalm 1

Last Sunday we began our survey of the Psalms in a series entitled "Worship YAHWEH: thinking, knowing, feeling, and praising God." The focus on Sunday was on Psalm 1. Psalm 1 functions well as the first psalm since it lays down the foundation for how we might experience a delighted worship of God. There are two ways to live: 1) the way of the righteous, which will lead us to delighted worship of God, and 2) the way of the wicked, which will lead us to our destruction.

Ps 1:1-2 explains the two ways to live. The wicked way involves a kind of entrenched pridefulness, where your thoughts and actions show themselves to be firmly set in opposite directions from God. The happy (i.e. "blessed" - this word simply means "happy") person steers clear of this type of life and those set in this type of life. Instead, they delight in and meditate on the teaching (or "law") of the Lord. In other words, all of life is seen through the prism of God's teaching. God's word is the main syllabus and course packet for understanding and navigating through life. This word is meditated on "day and night," which means that there is no area of life that is not shaped by and influenced by God's teaching. This also means then that every moment of my life can be moments of profound happiness if I am regularly ingesting and enjoying the food of God's word.

Ps 1:3-4 illustrates the two ways to live. The righteous way of delighted worship is like being planted in a secure, stable place, being regularly nourished by water, and producing visible fruit. The wicked way, on the other hand, is like useless chaff. It doesn't matter how happy and prosperous the wicked appear to be. Eventually their lives will be shown to be utterly worthless, without any vitality or substance. It is inherently rootless, easily overwhelmed by the winds of life.

Ps 1:5-6 concludes the psalmist's thoughts on the two ways to live. All sin, no matter how it looks like, will not last among God's people. For God intimately knows the way of those who follow and delightedly worship him. These are his people. But the way of sin, the way of the wicked, will be utterly destroyed.

In the end then, we can if we want be unhappy. We do this when we choose to steer away from God and his teaching. Or, we can be happy. We do this when we choose to stay grounded in and devoted to the Lord's teaching. Sadly, the natural inclination of man is to choose the way of unhappiness, because we are naturally drawn to choosing our own ways rather than God's ways. Fortunately, we have the hope of God acting towards us in Jesus Christ. He moves towards us, planting us in the soil of gospel that then allows us to truly seek him and his teaching.

Thus, the beginning of delighted worship of God and the foundation for delighted worship of God is thankfulness - thankfulness to God for wrenching us out of death and into life in his Son. Such thankfulness opens us up to rich worship of God as we then grab hold of and shape our lives according to the teaching that unfolds all the implications of our new status in Jesus. Because of this, we can know that we will be happy tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, all the way until eternity. We can know this not because we know for sure everything will go our way (it definitely will not!) We can know this if we know that our life are firmly set in the Lord and his instruction. To know this, and to then live it out, is the key to true happiness.

Friday, July 3, 2009

The 21st Century Christian and Technology

Technology has a great impact on human life. It provides us with new and powerful ways of interacting with the world. These interactions are geared towards making things more effective, efficient and convenient for us. So for example portable music players mean that I am able to enjoy music when I want to as opposed to only when there is a live performance.

Such advances are certainly enjoyable and satisfying. At the same time however we must recognize that the values of efficiency and convenience are not necessarily God's highest values. The Bible often shows God having his people do things that are decidedly inefficient and inconvenient (ex. Israel marching around the walls of Jericho, the command to only carry the ark of the covenant only by poles, Israel having to hamstring any horses they captured as they conquered the land of Canaan).

Instead, what the Bible is concerned to teach us is that our lives must be oriented first and foremost around God's standards. Everything in our lives should submit to God - no matter how inconvenient this might be. The basic assumption of Romans 12:1-2 is that there are some ways of life that Christians must wholeheartedly reject. God tells us to instead "think differently" by having a renewed mind so that we can live the transformed life that fits with God's will, namely all that is good and acceptable and perfect.

Christians begin to have a renewed mind when they believe in Jesus. In Christ they gain a new life with God. But this new life must be nurtured and matured. We must "test" it so that it aligns with God's will.

Too often our approach to life is a naive immediate consumerist adoption of everything shiny and new that comes our way. The transformed life of the Christian will instead "test everything" before swallowing it down and incorporating it into our lives and churches (cf 1 Thess 5:21-22).

It's from this vantage point that we begin to realize the importance of great discernment when it comes to technology. Technology has great value for us but it also holds great danger for us. For technology impacts us not just in how we use it but in the fact that we use it, that we then begin to depend on it, and that we then demand to have it. So for example cell phones have made it easier for us to contact people. However, the use of cell phones also changes our expectations about contacting people. We begin to expect that we should always be able to contact people whenever we want to (and thus get frustrated whenever this doesn't happen), and we begin to live in such a way that we expect to be easily contacted by others (which means we get used to constant interruptions throughout our day).

At a certain point, technology can become like a god. It subtly but powerfully reshapes our persepctive, priorities, and expecations away from what God wants us to do towards whatever is most convenient and satisfying for us to do. Neil Postman writes how technology has become a god for us in that, "...people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence...and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits, and their relationships to accomodate it."

This is why it is absolutely crucial to be discerning when it comes to our engagement with technology. Such discernement and testing I believe will reveal some clear dangers to avoid and some major biblical emphases to embrace.

Dangers in the technologically centered life
1. Tendency to elevate information
Technology makes it easier and easier to find out whatever we want about anything. But just because we have a lot of knowledge available to us doesn't actually mean we actually know anything! As Christian blogger Tim Challies recently wrote, we can begin to think that memorizing the Bible is unimportant if we think that we can always just instantly call up any information we need off our laptops or cell phones.

2. Tendency to elevate the trivial.
In every generation there is a tendency to drift towards diversion, to dwell on silly and useless things. Note for instance Paul's instruction to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:4.

It says a lot about us, that we are able to find time to check our Facebook page throughout the day but struggle to find even a few minutes to pray or read fromt eh Bible. We are able to carve out time to watch a few of our favorite hourlong dramas on television each week but have a number of excuses for why we can't make a weekly church gathering. We stay up on what new movies or new music is coming out but are clueless about what's really going on in other people's lives.

3. Tendency to elevate the immediate.
Our current technological world has effectively rewired many people's attention spans. We've become addicted to getting an immediate and constant flow of media, which it makes it harder to stay focused on any one thing. Our minds constantly wander from whatever task we are engaged with to something else. In the space of 15 minutes we will go from working on a paper to checking email to answering a cell phone.

4. Tendency to elevate a "browsing" lifestyle.
We "skim" or "browse" through life, never really engaging with anything or anyone. Douglas Groothuis in his book "The Soul in Cyberspace" describes how many go through their days having an "absent presence." We might be physically there with people, but not really engaged with them. We are simply browsing through our interactions with people as we busily text and chat and watch TV.

There tends to be a false sense of intimacy born out of the "browsing" lifestyle. We will for instance reveal very personal things through technology but remain superficial when it comes to talking face to face with someone.

The above list clearly holds great danger for the Christian concerned to live in right relationship with God and others. In contrast to this the Bible emphasizes certain things that will instead orient us to God and rightly develop our lives with God.

Emphases in the God-oriented life
1. The importance of being present.
The Hebrews writer directly tells us in Heb 10:24-25 to not give up the habit of meeting together. He ties in important "one anothers" like loving one another or encouraging one another with the habit of meeting together. True Christian relationship come out of people coming together regularly and knitting themselves together in the love of Christ. Note also 1 John 1:1,3, where we see that the disciples' physical encounter with Jesus launched them to start proclaiming the gospel that announced a way for all people to have a relationship with God through Jesus. As we proclaim the gospel and develop relationships that involve real presence and deep engagement with others, we carry on the mission that the apostles' first began.

Technology has a bad habit of pointing us away from this biblical emphasis. But it can also help encourage and point us towards these kinds of relationships. They can be used to extend and further enhance and deepen our existing relationships.

The apostle John for instance certainly took advantage of the technology of writing and the Roman road system to connect with various Christians in the 1st century. But nevertheless he affirms that there are some things that could not be conveyed in letters, that required physical presence. As he writes in 2 John 1:12, "Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete."

2. The importance of humility and authenticity.
Technology can facilitate honest and humbly engagement with people or destroy it. The internet too often is a place where peopel engage in driveby shootings of people's character. In addition, it is geared to making you be the star. It provides tools for you to promote yourself, to obssess about yourself and what other people think about you. Josh Harris rightly points to what the Bible instead emphasizes when he writes, "I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he's written in his word, no what somebody just wrote on my 'wall.'" The "one anothers" of Scripture imply that our basic orientation is not to oursleves but towards others. And our highest priority is to be what God wants to do in and through us; it is not about us but about God!

A practical guideline to these first two points would be to encourage habits of life that make us engage people fully. Put the phone down and instead look be present with people.

3. The importance of reflection and "digestion."
Just as we should be present/engaged with people so also we should seek to be present/engaged with God's word and our own lives. We must regularly engage in the practice of examining and thinking over the word and then taking its truths into our hearts in such a way that our lives are deeply affected and radically changed.

On reflective digestion of the word, see Ps 119:11, 1 Tim 4:13, and 2 Tim 3:14-15. On reflective examination of one's own life, see 1 Cor 11:28 and 2 Cor 13:5.

A practical guideline here would be develop sustained attention over immediacy. This means:
- Reducing multi-taksing and any other habits that encourage distration and an ADD type of spirituality.
- Engaging in regular media fasts/techno-Sabbaths
- Truly studying God's word. Then study yourself in light of what you study in God's word.

4. The importance of words - specifically God's words
The Christian faith is a word-centered faith. Our technology tends to be image-centered. Images are important and significant. But they are important and significant to the degree that they implant certain words within us, more specifically, God's words. Note how the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament, while they had some striking visual elements, all had at their center a box within which you found not a statue of God but stone tablets on which was written the law of the Lord. When Satan attempted to tempt Jesus to live strictly by his physical senses, Jesus told him, "Man will not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

What we see can't be understood apart form being anchored to God's word. Technology, wisely used, can help spread and reinforce this word into our lives.

A practical guideline for this point is that we must diligently develop a love for God's word over media. This means:
- Regularly read scripture aloud and in community
- Have a solid bible that you regularly bring with you and whose truths you apply as you are out in the mix of life.

5. The importance of wisdom and understanding.
We have tons of information instantly available at our fingertips. But just because we have a lot available doesn't mean we are actually doing much with it. The Bible calls us to not having simply a lot of knowledge but towards having wisdom. Indeed, wisdom begins with the "fear of the Lord" (Prov 9:10) This will often mean dealing with inefficient and inconvenient things like suffering and patience.

A practical guideline here would be to develop wisdom over trivia. This means:
- Reduce useless information and trivia in your life. Instead seek to read large chunks of important things. Seek to know and memorize important things (like God's word)
- Use technology for the sake of cultivating wisdom. If you are using things like facebook, blogs, and text messaging, then saturate it with stuff that points people to God and to the kind of lives that we want to live with God.
- There's some technology that some of us, probably most of us, should absolutely reject and avoid. It takes up valuable time and energy and more often than not engages us in useless diversion as opposed to developing wisdom within us. Do we really need to watch as much TV as we do or have as many TV channels as we do? Do we really need to have an account with the newest social networking thing out there? Do we really need to daily check as many websites as we do? Answer to all these questions: No!

In the end, we must say that while technology is a great and powerful tool, let it always be seen as a power that submits to the far far greater power of God that is able to bring salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1 1:16). It is this power that we should embrace, seeking the salvation of many through it. We bring all other things in this world, including technology, in service to this great mission.

What are your thoughts on being a Christian in a technological world? How has technology functioned in your life and how do you make sure it functions in a way that does not slowly deteriorate your walk in the Lord?