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According to Your Unfailing Love

April 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.”
~Psalm 51:1

For forgiveness of my sin, I have nothing to appeal to outside of God’s great love and compassion. If I ask for forgiveness based on my own love for God or for my fellow humans, I will be destroyed. If I beg for mercy based on my loyalty to God, I will be condemned. If I plead for absolution based on my good deeds, my stack of merits, or my status, I will not be saved. I cannot pray for forgiveness because of my own faithfulness. Certainly not according to my righteousness. Nor my goodness. Not my sincerity. I can’t show God my list of accomplishments, I can’t bring to him the contents of my heart, I can’t appeal to him based on my intentions, my actions, or my thoughts.

I’ve got nothing.

Nothing.

If it’s according to me or according to anything I’ve ever done or thought about doing; if it’s based on my past or present or future; if it’s contingent on my goodness in any way, I’m sunk. You know it and I know it. I’m done for. And so are you.

Praise God, it’s according to his unfailing love! Praise God it’s according to his great compassion!

It’s all I’ve got. And it’s all I need.

It’s all you’ve got. And it’s all you need.

Peace,

Allan

For Church Leaders

April 28, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“Consider that there is nothing in this life, and especially in our own day, more easy and pleasant and acceptable to men than the office of bishop or priest or deacon, if its duties be discharged in a mechanical or sycophantic way; but nothing more worthless and deplorable and meet for chastisement in the sight of God. And, on the other hand, that there is nothing in this life, and especially in our own day, more difficult, toilsome, and hazardous than the office of bishop or priest or deacon; but nothing more blessed in the sight of God, if our service be in accordance with our Captain’s orders.”

~Augustine to Valerius on his ordination at Hippo

Feels So Good

April 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

It seems that following our official corporate expressions of the “4 Amarillo” efforts with the other downtown churches, I get asked several times by members of our family here at Central, “Why does it feel so good?” It’s not quite guilt, I don’t think; sometimes I think the question comes from a place of surprise. More than that, I assume it’s a legitimate search for an explanation for the really, really good feelings we have.

I believe it’s because we’re doing what we were created by God to do. It’s like a fish swimming in water instead of flopping on the sidewalk. It’s like an engine running on motor oil instead of lemonade. It’s like tightening a bolt with a wrench instead of a hammer or baking a cake in the oven instead of the washing machine.

It feels good, it feels right, to break down barriers between God’s people and unite under the holy name of his Son for the sake of his Kingdom. It feels right to worship and work with other Christians, to sacrifice our own preferences, to give up our own comforts, to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit,” to be a part of a significant something that’s bigger than us or our own particular group.

It’s like feeding the hungry or clothing the poor or any of a number of other good works. It makes you feel good to do those things because doing those good things is precisely why you were created and called by our God. We were created to live in Christian community with one another and to express Christian unity in ways that will astonish the world and testify to the power of our Lord.

Burt Palmer and I are swapping pulpits this Sunday morning. I’ll be preaching both services at Polk Street United Methodist Church and Burt will be preaching here at Central. Please be in fervent prayer this week that our God will bless our attempts at Christian unity. Ask our Father to use “4 Amarillo” for the sake of his Kingdom in our city. And, if you live anywhere in the panhandle of our great state of Texas, make plans to be at Central to welcome and bless Burt and to hear the Word powerfully proclaimed by one of God’s faithful servants.

My assumption is you’re going to feel really good about it.

Peace,

Allan

Bold Community

April 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life!” ~Romans 6:4

If we understand that resurrection and eternal life with the Father is what awaits us when we die and that, until then, Christ’s resurrection Spirit is what gives us power, that will radically impact the way we live. We have no problem risking our reputations, our popularity, our well being, even our very lives. A resurrection community is bold. Risky. No fear. We know that the salvation of the world and the salvation of our community is in the loving and powerful hands of the same God who brought our Lord out of the grave. So we can do crazy things, outrageous things, in practicing and living the resurrection every day.

Resurrection boldness is what compels us to give $353,000 in one day to help spread the good news around the globe. Resurrection boldness is what pushes us to work and worship with the Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians for the sake of our city. Resurrection boldness is what prompts us to buy an apartment complex across the street that we don’t know what to do with yet except that the truth and the experience of the Resurrection assures us that God is not going to let it go to waste.

Resurrection boldness causes us to cancel Bible classes so we can bake cookies and build birdhouses for the children of our neighborhood, to bring Franklin Graham to Amarillo, and to build a beautiful chapel during the Depression.

Resurrection boldness motivates us to build when others might tear down, to stand up when others might sit, and to go when everybody else may want to stay. It’s why Elaine goes to Kenya, why Tim goes to Martha’s Home, why Brett goes to India, why Patrick is leading  Bible class, why Daniel and Alisha keep fighting and why Cadence and Erin and Doug got baptized today!

Don’t tell me we can’t or we shouldn’t, because they killed Jesus, they killed him dead, and they put his dead body in a grave, and on the third day our God brought him back to life to reign with all power and authority at his right hand forever. Don’t tell me we can’t; the Resurrection says we have to! And our resurrection community at Central will not stop being bold, we will not stop taking risks, because our Savior lives and his resurrection spirit is in us!

Peace,

Allan

Speaking Community

April 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus!” ~Acts 4:33

In Matthew 28, Jesus meets the women outside the empty tomb and says, “Go and tell my brothers!” Scripture says the women “ran to tell the disciples.” In Mark 16, the angel inside the tomb says, “Go and tell!” The risen Lord eats with his disciples that night and says, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation!” Verse 20 says, “The disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them.” Same thing in Luke 24. “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.” When the two disciples met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “they told what had happened.” While Jesus shares a meal with his followers that night he says, “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.”

Sure enough, the resurrection community can’t keep their mouths shut. In the earliest days of the Church, according to Acts, everybody was talking. Peter and John get thrown in jail for talking about the resurrection and protest to the authorities, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard!”

When we are truly raised with Christ to walk in newness of eternal life, when we are formed and shaped by the Resurrection of Jesus, how are we not going to talk about it? The Resurrection community proclaims the good news of the resurrection and reign and return of our Lord. We can’t help it.

I would add that followers of Jesus are all about life, not death; we’re a people of hope, not despair; we’re a community of light, not darkness. And when we speak, our words should give resurrection life to others. Our speech should breathe new life into others.

In Colossians, Paul is talking about formation by resurrection when he says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace.” We’re told in Ephesians 4 to speak the truth in love. In Acts 20, we’re told that everywhere Paul went he spoke words of encouragement.

All the words that come out of our mouths should be words that restore and renew, never words that tear down or destroy. When we speak, our words should point others to the resurrection life that’s forming us.

Peace,

Allan

Together Community

April 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“God made us alive together with Christ!” ~Ephesians 2:5

I realize the phrase “Together Community” comes from the Department of Redundancy Department. The word “community” means “tgogether,” right? Good. Because we are all raised with Christ Jesus to be together.

When considering the resurrection stories in the Gospels, please notice that not one person experienced the power, the hope, and the mystery of the empty tomb alone. Nobody encountered the risen Lord by themselves. The people who saw the empty grave and the angels, the ones who ate dinner with Jesus that night, they were all with their friends. Most of them, we know their names. We know their stories. We know their relationships with one another. And what a mixed bag of people. What a weird collection of folks.

Jesus’ mother and a radical anti-government conspirator. The wealthy Jewess Mary Magdalene and the turncoat tax collector. Cursing fishermen and gentle women. Big city boys and sons of country farmers. Resurrection is experienced in a complex network of personal relationships. Men and women just like us: puzzled, bewildered, confused, questioning, doubting. And, yes, singing and believing and praying and obeying. Together.

The Resurrection of Jesus creates togetherness. It creates relationships. It forms us together today as one people just like it did then. Just glance at Acts 2 and look at the Resurrection community. People from all walks of life — rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, men and women, educated and ignorant, powerful and marginal — all brought together by the Holy Spirit of the risen Savior to live together and act like family. They didn’t have a whole lot in common other than the resurrection. But they acted like a family. Every day. In each other’s homes. Loving each other. Ministering to one another. Taking care of each other. Eating and praying together. Singing and serving together. They devoted themselves to the community and had all things in common.

The resurrection community is like a neighborhood, but it’s more personal. It’s like a family, only more diverse. It can be like a football team or a civic club, but it’s much stronger. I like to think of our resurrection community at Central like an army platoon. We’re brought together by something much bigger than ourselves, united by a shared purpose, and made stronger under pressure and difficulty. Together. We are a group of brothers and sisters who live in sacred covenant with one another in order to serve the Kingdom for which our Lord died and was raised to eternal life. It’s about something that really, really matters.

We need each other. None of us can do this by ourselves. It’s impossible. We’re not intended to. We were raised with Christ to be together.

I need you. And whether you admit it or not — whether you like it or not — you need me, too. You need me to love you and I need you to encourage me. You need me to challenge you and I need you to correct me. I need your strength when I’m tired and you need my support when you’re down. I need your patience when you have none and you need my joy when you have none. We all need to remind each other about the Resurrection and our parts in it. We all need to be able to regularly look around and see clearly that we are not in this thing by ourselves.

Peace,

Allan

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