Category: Colossians (Page 10 of 11)

Wrestling Together In Prayer

September 11, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.” ~Exodus 17:16

God’s people are battling the enemy in the valley. Up on the mountain, Moses is lifting his hands in prayer. He’s interceding for the people. He’s taking them to God.

And his arms get tired. His hands drop. He can’t go on. It’s too much.

True intercession is a demanding activity. Paul describes it in Colossians 4 as wrestling. True intercession will wear you out. It’ll cost you.

And that’s why we do it together. As Aaron and Hur joined Moses and physically held his arms high, we help each other by praying together. We strengthen each other. We raise each other up as we pray. We give and receive mutual encouragement. We declare together our trust in God to deliver.

And he does.

The Legacy 24 Hours of Prayer begins one week from today. It’s one of my top two or three most anticipated and favorite events of the year. The men of this church family are meeting in one-hour shifts from 8:00 next Friday morning through 8:00 next Saturday morning, around the clock, to raise close to two-thousand prayer requests to our God.

Together.

Nothing builds community and relationship and trust like spending an hour together in a foxhole, battling Satan in open and honest prayer. You can learn more about your Christian brother and his heart and his mind and his soul in one hour of prayer than you can in one year of going to football games or taking hunting trips together. Wrestling together. Supporting one another. Bearing one another’s burdens and giving them to our gracious God together.

The Rock here at Legacy becomes our mountain of prayer one week from today.

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Two more days until the Dallas Cowboys kick off their 50th season in the NFL. And today’s #2 in our Red Ribbon Review of the second-best players in Cowboys history according to jersey number is backup quarterback Anthony Wright. A free-agent out of South Carolina, Wright actually started five games for the Cowboys in his two seasons here, 2000-2001. He went 1-4 as a starter, his lone win coming against the Redskins at Texas Stadium by a score of 9-7. Wright completed 46.4% of his passes as a Cowboy, throwing five TDs and eight picks. He finished with a QB rating of 50.8 and as the second-best #2 in Cowboys history.

Catching up on the countdown from the past couple of days: #3 is kicker Billy Cundiff, a 2002 graduate of Drake University who never missed a field goal of less than 30 yards as a Cowboy. He played in Dallas from 2002-05, missing only one PAT in those four seasons (100/101) and hitting 73.2% of his field goals.

The second-best #4 in Cowboys history is punter Toby Gowin. A Mean Green Eagle from North Texas, he punted for Dallas for three seasons, from 1997-99, and was then released as a free agent. He bounced around the league for a couple of years and then re-signed with Dallas in 2003 on an unheard of five-year-contract. It lasted one year. Gowin punted a total of four seasons for the Cowboys: 64 games, a 41.7 yards per punt average, and a long punt of 72 yards in 1997. The most interesting thing about Gowin’s Cowboys career is his rushing average: 33 yards per carry. On one carry in ’98.

Peace,

Allan

Wrestling Together In Prayer

September 11, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.” ~Exodus 17:16

God’s people are battling the enemy in the valley. Up on the mountain, Moses is lifting his hands in prayer. He’s interceding for the people. He’s taking them to God.

And his arms get tired. His hands drop. He can’t go on. It’s too much.

True intercession is a demanding activity. Paul describes it in Colossians 4 as wrestling. True intercession will wear you out. It’ll cost you.

And he does.

Together.

The Rock here at Legacy becomes our mountain of prayer one week from today.

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Peace,

Allan

For The Sake Of His Body

July 15, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

Preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God is going to involve some suffering. Picking up a cross and following Jesus, as our Savior demands, is certainly a call to suffering. It’s a sharing in the sufferings of Christ, a participation in what he endured. It makes us more like him. It shapes us and molds us to be more like him.

Jesus’ afflictions are not complete. They’re not done. They’re not finished. They are “lacking.” The sufferings of the Christ are still being carried out in those of us who follow him.

“I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the Church.”

The Colossians 1:24-29 context in which we find this sentence is all about preaching — proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. Preachers, I think, are called to die. To die to self, to die to the world, to die to any other way of life, to model in a “the-medium-is-the-message” kind of way what it looks like to live in Christ. To take on the sufferings, to bear the burdens, to carry the weight. And to do it for the sake of the Church.

There’s a teenager in your church who will come alive if you’ll only die for him. There’s an older woman in your congregation who will blossom like never before if you’ll die for her. There’s a sick brother, a depressed sister, a spiritually immature Christian, a stubborn believer, a wounded soul, a damaged disciple who has no hope of living unless someone dies for him or her.

I need to be reminded of this constantly. My role as a proclaimer of the Good News is to preach it and live it the way Christ did. Even with the sufferings. Accepting the sufferings. Embracing the sufferings. Welcoming them as a way of joining my Lord in his mission to redeem the world.

“I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the Church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness — the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” ~Colossians 1:24-29.

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Today’s #60 in our Red Ribbon Review countdown to Cowboys season is a downer. Twelve players have worn #60 in Cowboys history. And it’s a less than stellar group. The noteables among them include the likes of Jackie Burkett, Ben Noll, Lee Roy Caffey, and Dean Hamel. You don’t remember them. You can’t tell me what position they played or when. This is a tough group. Only two of these 12 played for Dallas longer than two seasons. One of them is the second-best #60 ever to play for the Cowboys. And he is defensive lineman Don Smerek.

(I can’t even find a picture of the guy. All I’ve got for you are these career stats. If you find a picture of Smerek please send it to me. Still looking for a picture of our Red Ribbon #69, Ben Fricke, too.)

I do remember him, though. Smerek played 69 games for the Cowboys as a backup defensive lineman from 1981-87. An undrafted free agent out of Nevada-Reno, Smerek finished his career with 14.5 quarterback sacks, six of those in 1983, probably his finest season. Smerek is remembered for his time in Dallas, mainly, for two things.

One, he was shot in the chest one night by a Dallas motorist who claimed the 6′-7″, 260-pound Smerek kicked his car and challenged him to a fight. A Dallas grand jury refused to indict the shooter for attempted murder. They ruled it self-defense.

Two, Smerek was riding shotgun with Randy White when they famously crossed the Cowboys players’ picket line to participate in practice on the first day of the 1987 NFL players strike. Tony Dorsett stood in front of White’s pickup in a tense standoff in front of TV cameras and nearly got run over by an angry “Manster.” Of course, Dorsett actually joined the “scabs” two weeks later, along with Too Tall Jones and Danny White. I’m not sure the Cowboys ever got over what happened during those six weeks. But Smerek and Randy White were the first two to cross. And Smerek is the second-best player to ever wear #60 for the Cowboys.

Peace,

Allan

The King Is Coming

March 24, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

In 2 Samuel 19, the king is coming back to Jerusalem to re-establish his sovereign rule over God’s people. He had voluntarily left his throne in order to save his people. He had been mocked and ridiculed, cursed and humiliated on his way out of town. But now he’s coming back. And he’s coming back to set things right.

And Ziba and Shemei are scared.

They’ve spent their lives cursing the king, using the king’s blessings to fatten their own purses, taking advantage of the king’s kindness, deceiving the king. Coming to the king and the king’s people with false motives, impure hearts, seeking personal gain at the expense of the kingdom. Hypocrites. Shemei openly curses the king. Ziba claims allegiance to the king, but lies to him. That’s even worse. The apostle John says we do the exact same thing when we say we love God but we don’t love our brother. When we confess Christ as Lord but live lives that deny him. Those sins are deserving of death. Eternal death.

But look at the mercy of the king. Be amazed at the grace and the love and the compassion of the king. Shemei and Ziba bow down to the ground, they confess their sins before the king — sins that deserve under the law to be punished by death — and the king forgives them. He promises on oath they will not die. And he stops his men from even discussing the possibility.

Is it any wonder that the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth calls David a man after his own heart?

You know the King is coming. And if you have sin in your life, you should be greatly concerned. But if you bow down to the King, if you confess to the King, if you submit fully to the King…the King forgives. And when the King returns, you meet him with joy and gladness, not fear.

The great news for us is that the King WANTS to forgive. He wants full reconciliation. He’s not willing that any should die. He wants desperately to welcome every man and woman he’s ever created into his eternal Kingdom. God sent his Son to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Through Jesus, God is “reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.”

God wants you. And he’ll go to whatever lengths necessary to get you.

He died to save you.

And he’s coming back.

He promises us in John 14 he’s coming back. The angels told the apostles in Acts 1 he’s coming back. The closing words of our holy Scriptures assure us the King’s coming: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

Are you ready?

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March Madness — The Legacy basketball team (“Team Dyniewski” or, my favorite, “TohuBohu”) made its debut last night in the North Richland Hills recreation center with an impressive 52-49 win over a bunch of guys with real uniforms. Josh Dyniewski and Aaron Green provided the muscle, combining to score at least 40 of our points inside the paint, while the rest of us just tried to stay out of the way.

Several keys to the impressive victory:

1) the decision to play a 2-3 zone defense. The decision was made as the teams were facing off on the court for the opening tip. Nice. Nevermind the fact we had never played anything but a man-to-man defense in our twice-weekly pickup games here at Legacy. Nevermind the fact that we had never even discussed the possibility of playing a zone before. It worked. Mostly.

2) Josh’s six-straight made free throws in the final 90-seconds. Sealed the deal. Clutch.

3) Aaron’s sending two of our opponents to the hospital with leg injuries. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit. But Green was a monster down there.

4) Trey Thornton using all five of his fouls. Coker will be proud.

5) Going with the Carolina blue Champion dri-soft jerseys. Did I mention they were numberless? That’s a problem in this league. So we had to don the city’s junior-high pinis over our shirts. Elastic down. Not flattering. They actually serve to accentuate middle-age girth. I wanted to wear mine upside down. They wouldn’t let me. We looked like a bunch of rejects who’d been bussed in from somewhere far, far away. But apparently they worked like a charm. We didn’t turn in Josh’s pini after the game. We’re going to have it framed and hung up on the wall at the Rufe Snow Chick-Fil-A. Nobody can ever wear #9 again.

1-0, baby! We might have to discuss the construction of a huge Legacy trophy case at Thursday’s elders meeting.

Peace,

Allan

Christ Is All And Is In All

January 16, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

I enjoyed a fantastic lunch today with Manuel Calderon, our Hispanic minister here at Legacy. We’re planning a bi-lingual worship assembly for next Sunday in an effort to better integrate our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters into our church family at-large. And it’s facsinating to me that the barriers between us—the Anglos and the Hispanics—have much more to do with culture than with language.

They all speak English!

Granted, some communicate in English better than others. But of the 35-40 members of our “Spanish-speaking” congregation, only one or two speak exclusively Spanish. It’s not the language that divides us as much as it is our different cultures, our different socio-economic situations, our different “classes,” our different colors, our different backgrounds. We are increasingly speaking the same language, yet our Hispanic brothers and sisters remain segregated from the Anglos in our Christian churches.

You know, “segregation” is an ugly, ugly word in the history of this country. We have argued and revolted and debated and fought and bled and died to eradicate segregation in our larger society. And we’re still fighting. Because it’s such an awful word. It’s such a horrible distortion of what it is we claim to stand for.

But ‘segregation” seems to be perfectly OK in our Christian settings. And I don’t think we can be perfectly OK with that.

We have black congregations and white congregations and nobody seems to care. We have white congregations with 30 Hispanics meeting by themselves in a back room and nobody seems to care. For some reason it’s approved as OK. It’s brushed aside as “the way things are” or simply ignored as “the way it’s always been.” It’s excused as “the way they want it.”

Is it the way Christ Jesus wants it?

The early church was scandalous in the ways it welcomed all classes, all cultures, all genders, all languages and dialects into its fellowship. We’ve managed to avoid that scandal by segregating ourselves. The early church had to work through many difficulties, had to learn how to sacrifice and serve and look out for the needs of others as they welcomed all comers. We’ve avoided that hardship and the lessons and the spiritual growth that come with it by keeping to ourselves.

As church leaders, we should never wet our fingers and stick them up in the air to see which way the wind’s blowing. We should attempt to change the wind!

I don’t know about you, but Colossians 3:11 means something to me.

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Galatians 3:28 sounds like truth to me.

“Their is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

We pray for Christian unity. We long for the day when all our differences are ultimately rendered meaningless. We anticipate that great banquet when all the nations and languages and tribes and peoples are gathered around our Lord’s table. We yearn for the realization of the perfect union we share in Christ Jesus.

I think if we’re praying for something, we ought to be working for it too. I think if we see something as God’s eternal will, we ought to be doing something about it.

We’re trying at Legacy. We’re trying. We’re not perfect. We’re not moving nearly quickly enough. It’s messy. It’s hard. But we’re trying.

Peace,

Allan

All Things Hold Together

October 9, 2008 / Allan / 0 Comments

“By him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” ~Colossians 1:16-17

Paul may be talking about tangible powers on earth or spiritual forces in the heavens. He may be talking about good powers and evil powers. He may be talking about our own human systems of power and authority. The point, though, is that Christ has majesty and power over all of them, whatever shape they take. Just like every single thing under the sun, they were created by him and for him.

Jesus is the spiritual gravity that holds all of creation together.

God didn’t create the world and then pull back. He didn’t just hit the “start” button and now he just watches everything from a distance and only intervenes when he feels like he has to. God through Christ sustains the whole universe. He keeps the cosmos from becoming a chaos.

But that “hold together” in verse 17, I think, means even more. Christ is more than just the force that keeps everything spinning and you and me upright. Christ is the meaning of creation. He’s the rationale of creation. He is the rhyme and reason of creation. Creation exists in him. The universe is not self-sufficient. Neither are we. No matter how much we deceive ourselves into thinking we are. We and all of creation are entirely dependent on Christ.

The difficult part is knowing that God’s creation is—and has been for a while—out of harmony. It’s messed up. It’s fallen. Broken. The world is corrupted, distorted. It’s ravaged by sin.

And we worry about the whole thing being blown to bits. We worry more and more about an asteroid smashing through our atmsosphere or a world-wide nuclear war or global warming disentegrating all of it. The way technology is now, we get news instantaneously from around the corner and around the world. Everytime we turn on the TV, everytime we turn on the computer, we see more bombings, more killings, shootings, arson, gangs, violence, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought. This news reinforces our notions that the world is dark and dangerous. All the violence around us reinforces our beliefs that everything in the world is aimless. It becomes harder and harder to believe that God’s creation can somehow be good. That it can ever be saved or redeemed. It’s very easy to give up hope in this world. It looks like evil rules. Not Christ.

And in the middle of all that, Paul gives us this beautiful and powerful poetry in Colossians 1:15-20. It inspires us. It nourishes us. It reminds us that God’s gracious purposes for this planet are being worked out and will be realized in Christ. Our destiny is determined by a merciful and loving Father, not by fate or fluke or chance.

If creation is created by Christ and exists for Christ, then it’s never meaningless or without direction. And if we belong to Christ, we also have a place in the story. And a divine purpose.

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Three observations about this latest incident with Cowboys cornerback PacMan Jones:

1) What’s the point of having a bodyguard you think you can whip? Does it make any sense to employ a bodyguard who’s not even as tough as you are? If you’re being threatened or attacked, why is the one charged with protecting you the guy you just licked?

2) There were no arrests made and no charges filed. It looks like Jones’ bodyguard is the only one who got hurt. But it was nearly 2:00 am. They were all, including Jones, quite drunk. And it was very public. And it was bad enough that hotel officials called 9-1-1. This is the 13th time in a little less than three years that police have been called to respond to a situation involving Jones. Thirteen times in three years! If we’re looking for a pattern…..

3) I’m hearing a few Cowboys fans today say they should cut Jones from the team. They say this is too much. He’s a bad egg. I’m certain these are the same fans who, in the wake of Michael Irvin’s very public troubles with prostitutes and cocaine and aggravated assault (attempted murder?), were calling for mercy and grace. See, I think if PacMan had five interceptions and had returned two punts for TDs already this season, Cowboys fans would be unanimously calling for Jerry Wayne and the NFL to show great leniency. “No arrests were made. No charges were filed. This is all being blown out of proportion.” It’s all about performance on the field. It has very little, if anything, to do with integrity or character. And that’s a shame on many fronts.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Colossians (Page 10 of 11)

Wrestling Together In Prayer

Wrestling Together In Prayer

For The Sake Of His Body

The King Is Coming

Christ Is All And Is In All

All Things Hold Together

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