Tag: insights

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What a phenomenal speech from a phenomenal man.  Here’s my favorite part, a part that I find universally applicable to any situation where someone or some group is trying to overcome oppression:

“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

Thank you, Dr. King.

And now, as we prepare to inaugurate our first President of color, let’s be sure to continue to judge him and all others not by the color of skin, but the content of character.

I’m praying for you, President Obama.  But my faith is not in you.

Proverbs 21:1

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Your god is Dying.

The financial news is crazy these days.  From what seems like an incessant train of bailouts and legislation to rising unemployment to insurance companies turning folks away, the news is rarely good.

People are in a state of panic.

What better time, as Christians, to show the watching world what we really trust in!?

I confess, this is a pep talk for myself that you are welcomed to listen in on, but I am discouraged as I step back from my situation and evaluate how I am handling things.  Our financial support has suffered recently, and if I am honest, I tend toward panic more than trusting Christ.  Which is exactly the opposite of how the gospel ought to affect me.

The reason so many people in the financial sector are breaking apart at the seams is because their god is dying.  They have trusted in money, or the economy, or their 401-K, or the American dream.  And now that thing in which they have placed their trust is dying.  Their god is dying.

Our God rose from death.  And he promises in his word that he takes care of his own.  Jesus is LORD.  Not just a king or a president.  The King of kings.  The Lord of lords.  He alone is in control.

So instead of freaking out when finances are tight, I am going to rejoice that my God is alive, and still in control.  I am going to trust.  But let’s take it another step.  How about instead of clamming up and “taking care of our own” with no regard for others, we model the generousity and others-focus that Jesus would have for us during this time.  Our generousity in the face of uncertainty will serve as God’s hands and feet drawing people who are otherwise totally disinterested and turned off by Christians.

Give sacrificially (no, this is not just a plug for you to support us.  Give to people who need to know that money won’t save them.)  Pray as to who God would have you minister to with your wallet.  Is there a single mom or a widow that needs a meal or a tank of gas?  Give to your church, so that they don’t have to lay off people. Give to the local food bank.  Just… GIVE.

I’ll start.  I haven’t taken it before the Lord with my wife yet, so I am not sure how we are going to give, but I assure you that this month, even in spite of a significant loss in our support, we will give more than we did last month.

Because my God is not dead, or dying.

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Corporate Sins.

Earlier a friend of mine twittered “Later, when you are jumping up and down yelling “we did it!” remember that all you did was sit on a couch feeding corporate America. GO TEAM”

And, being the tweet-first-question-later type I am, I hastily replied “later, when you are watching a movie on your big screen, proud of yourself for not watching the game, you still fed USA Inc.”

And then in the ensuing moments that passed I noted that I was only getting angrier at her tweet.  So, as is my custom, I asked myself why I was mad.  That often leads me to find the idolatry in my life.  Here’s what I found out.

First off, I am not even a football fan except in passing, so it wasn’t her attack of the NFL that got me mad.  It wasn’t her attack on corporate America that got me mad, either.  I am not a fan of how everything has advertising dollars attached to it, to the point that the phrases “Super Bowl” and “March Madness” have been trademarked.

What I eventually came to realize (with the help of the Holy Spirit, I suppose) is that the reason her message offended me so is that it struck very close to my idols.  I am a sports fan.  My drug of choice is college basketball, but I feel inclined to stick up for other fans, especially during the biggest single sports day of the American year.

I am very conscious of my idolatry in that area.  I am prone to trusting in and longing for the verification of my identity that comes from a UNC basketball victory.  I walk a little taller after we beat dook each time.  Conversely, I don’t talk to folks after a Carolina defeat, for at least a few hours.  And God is working on that area, helping me to see that it’s OK to enjoy a game without tying my identity to it.

And her tweet revealed that there is still work to do.

So, I apologize publicly for my offense of firing back when fired upon.  God is still working on me.

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The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us singlehandedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home free before they started:Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale:

Robert Farrar Capon (via Scott Stewart)

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Sprinkling the Baby.

Tomorrow evening, we are baptizing our little boy.  I know infant baptism has been an issue to split entire denominations, and so I thought it appropriate to pause and acknowledge the “why” of our decision to baptize our 9 month-old.

First, a few notes as to what this occasion is not.

  1. It is not a mere religious formality.  In fact, we are not fans of religion.  Let me explain.  Religion is the approach to God that says we need to do certain things to make him happy or to appease him.  Religion says that God sets a standard and that we are constantly doing things to reach that standard.  It’s karma.  Build up enough good stuff to make God happy.  We are not baptizing our child to make God happy.  We don’t go to church to make God happy.  That’s religion, and we (despite our classification with the IRS as members of a religious missionary organization) are not pro-religion.  Additionally, we are not pro-formality.  We aren’t baptizing Little Ben to check off a formality. In fact, if you come to our church, very little is formal.  The pastor doesn’t even tuck in his shirt.
  2. We don’t believe that this baptism saves Little Ben.  He is still saved the “old fashioned way” via the instructions in Romans 10:9-10.  He confesses his need for a savior, and asks Jesus to be that savior, through the power of the regenerating Holy Spirit.

So that’s what the baptism isn’t.  Here’s what it is.  (I should note that this is an “agree to disagree” issue for me, and I understand that for some it is not.  I apologize for not arguing with you about it. There are men and women I greatly respect and look up to like John Piper on the other side of the theological fence from me on this issue.  We agree to disagree.)  We believe that scripture teaches that God works through the unit of families.  When Abraham entered into covenant with God, he and all the males in his family were circumsized.  In many instances, God uses language like “the promise is for you and your children…” to demonstrate that His plan is to work through the family.  We see baptism as the new covenant version of circumcision.  Jesus’ death on the cross took away the need for blood to enter into the covenant.

So tomorrow when little Ben is baptized, what we are doing is acknowledging that he is a sinner in need of God’s grace, and that God has sovereignly placed him in our care to steward and shepherd into a man who one day will enter into God’s family.  The faith on display is not his faith, but ours.

What a beautiful picture of God’s grace: a selfish, self-centered baby is dragged (most likely screaming… the service starts near the fussiest time of the day) into a covenant where his sworn enemy (God) becomes his sacrificial lamb.

Feel free to join us as we celebrate God’s grace tomorrow night.

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