Category: Colossians (Page 10 of 11)

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

Clean Up

September 18, 2008 / Allan / 2 Comments

This is all follow-up and clean-up—an effort to tie up a few loose ends before the weekend.

I was wrong Tuesday in declaring that Aaron and Jennifer didn’t turn in their “KK&C Top 20” because they were in Hawaii. They actually took the time to put their numbers and teams together and emailed them to me from their hotel before the deadline. It’s just that our email server here at the church blocked it from getting to me because it was coming from the Hawaii hotel’s server. I didn’t see their lists until yesterday.

There’s nothing really earth-shattering that would have impacted the order of the teams in this week poll. But I do want to pass on a little trash talk. Everybody’s picking on Ohio St. And Jennifer piles on with this as she lists the Buckeyes at #12: “Do we really even have to include them this week? Yippee for USC putting them in their spot!” And Aaron boldly predicts that USC could beat the St. Louis Rams. They both put Florida at #3, declaring that the Gators will “spank Tennessee this Saturday to solidify their place.”

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About last night…

Every now and then, maybe once every couple of months, I get a weird vibe from the congregation here at Legacy while I’m preaching. It’s like they’re all staring at me, not with scowls, but with very serious looks on thier faces and with great intensity. And I’m never sure if everybody’s upset with what I’m saying or if they’re just really, really paying attention.

It happened last night in Oasis.

I’m preaching the Colossians 3:11 and Galatians 3:28 stuff I talked about in yesterday’s blog. In Christ, we all belong to each other. Just as Jesus lived and died to obliterate the differences that separate us, we too should be committed to breaking down the barriers of culture and language and socio-economic status that exist in our churches. And now, as we gear up for Give Away Day, is the perfect time to start thinking about and talking about these things. It’s time to be perfectly clear about how we understand the Gospel message.

Because the three-thousand people who visit us on Give Away Day and the people who are being brought to Christ by Manuel and our Spanish-speaking ministry are, in some ways, our enemies. They are enemies of our comfort zones, enemies of our decency and order, enemies of our property values, enemies of our traditions. And may God have mercy on us if we communicate to them in any way that you must be a white, working, middle-class, English-speaking American citizen in order to use our buildings or our classrooms or our worship center or our restrooms.

If we put any limits at all on anybody who’s different because they’re different—any limits—we are not of God. We are not acting like Jesus. If we exclude them from the table or shun them to another room, if we don’t give them full and complete access to all the physical blessings of this church family, we are, in essence, denying them access to the full and complete salvation from God. Because the Gospel of Jesus is that ALL barriers are annihilated. ALL the walls are destroyed. There are no differences. Christ is all and is in all.

And I’m looking at our church and wondering, “Are they all mad or are they just chewing on this?”

They’re just chewing on it. They’re taking it all in. I believe they’re listening and understanding and even agreeing. But at the same time they’re saying, “But that’s hard.”

Yes, it is. Christianity is a very difficult religion. Very difficult. As Neil Postman says, “Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.”

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I’m leaving Sunday afternoon for the ACU Lectureships with the rest of the Four Horsemen. After Jason preaches in Diana, he’ll meet Kevin at Dan’s house in Forney and they’ll all pick me up here at about 3:00. And we’ll eat Jalapeno chips and Whoppers (Jason will eat Corn Nuts. Nasty.) and we’ll laugh and we’ll make fun of each other and play on each other’s personality quirks and bad habits. Man, are we going to laugh. We always do. Along with our February camping trip, this is our other annual time to be together for a few days and minister to each other and study and pray together and grow together in Christ and in each other. What a blessing these three godly men are to me. What a tremendous source of strength for me in my difficult walk with Christ Jesus and his people. My heart overflows with gratitude to our God who saw fit to bring together a Garland cop, an architect, a jewelry salesman, and a radio anchor seven years ago to dramatically change all of our lives. To eternally alter our lives. And the rest of my prayer is that our God will use us in huge, massive ways to impact our communities and this whole planet for his Kingdom.

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I have to leave Abilene early—Tuesday after lunch—because I’m flying out of DFW Wednesday morning for Fresno, California to spend four days with the Woodward Park Church of Christ and my great friend Jim Gardner. I’m speaking five times in those four days, four times as part of their annual Spiritual Growth Workshop and then preaching at Woodward Park Sunday morning. And I’m excited about it on many fronts.

I’ve never been to California before. Never. I’m anxious to see the beautiful central California valley, even if I probably won’t make it out to the beach. I’m excited to experience the multi-cultural church family there at Woodward Park. Over a thousand members, like here at Legacy, but only about 600 English-speaking. Wonderful. I can’t wait. I’ll be preaching to a pretty huge crowd on Saturday night, probably the biggest ever for me personally. So, I’m looking forward to that. But mainly I’m thrilled to be spending a little time with Jim. As busy as he’s going to be, it will probably only be a little time. But it will be valuable. What a heart for preaching. What a spirit for evangelism. The more he can rub off on me, the better for us here at home. I miss Mandy and his precious daughters. I haven’t seen them since they left Marble Falls two years ago. And I’ll get to see Jimmy Mitchell again. Jim’s flying him in to lead our worship at the workshop.

It’ll be hectic every minute of every day between right now and next Sunday night, the 28th. Please ask our Father to bless me with safe travel and for his Word to be proclaimed powerfully through me and all the other speakers in Abilene and Fresno next week.

Peace,

Allan

Christ Is All And Is In All

September 17, 2008 / Allan / 6 Comments

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” ~Colossians 3:11

When we are joined to Christ, we are joined to one another. So we have absolutely no grounds, no basis, for any hatred toward others or feelings of superiority. All those feelings and attitudes are obliterated by our Redeemer. His Gospel completely opposes any use of human criteria to exclude others or reduce them to second class citizens. We dare not avoid others or belittle others on the basis of external and human distinctions that don’t matter to God—race, sex, class, education, geography, zip code, politics, culture, language, or economics.

We all, everyone of us, belong to each other.

Markus Barth writes:

“Justification in Christ is not an individual miracle happening to this person or that person, which each new person may seek or possess for himself. Rather, justification by grace is a joining together of this and that person, of the near and the far, of the good and the bad, of the high and the low, liberal and fundamentalist. Salvation is a social event. No one is joined to Christ except together with a neighbor.”

Any person who shuts others out on the basis of human differences is not of God. To apply these differences in excluding people from salvation or labeling them as unworthy until they change their condition is to deny that God is impartial. That attitude denies that we are justified by faith alone and that Christ’s death and resurrection atones for our sins. This sort of outlook insists that God loves us because of who we are, not in spite of who we are.

As we gear up for our annual Give Away Day here at Legacy and as we crank up our Spanish-speaking ministry, let us remember the Gospel as our Savior taught it and lived it. Shame on us if we tell anyone they have to act just like us, they have to think and talk and believe just like us. Shame on us if we force them to dress like us, pray like us, or worship like us. Shame on us if we obligate them to anything or anyone other than our heavenly Father, his resurrected Son, and his Holy Spirit.

Jesus treated the sinners, Samaritans, and Roman centurions the same as he treated the so-called righteous Jews. In fact, he treated the ones who were “different” or “outsiders” with more grace and love and mercy than he did the ones who “belonged.”

And so must we.

Peace,

Allan

Hidden With Christ

September 11, 2008 / Allan / 3 Comments

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” ~Colossians 3:3

Five years ago the LA Times reported on a man from Medford, Oregon.

“Old Man Howard spent decades chasing children off his farm, shotgun in hand, watching little legs spin like windmills into the distance. Generations considered him the meanest man in Jackson County. To others, Wesley Howard was simply an oddity: a loner who never married, never left Oregon, and lived his whole life in the same place he was born, a century-old farmhouse without phones or toilets. Children saw it as a haunted house; passersby photographed it as an artifact.

The house was built in 1890 and had not been painted in a half-century. From the road, the house looked, as one neighbor said, ‘ready to fall.’

Howard lived in the house by himself. Both floors were stacked ceiling-high with newspapers and magazines dating to the early 1900s. Upstairs bedrooms were equally cramped, filled with some of Howard’s boyhood toys. Howard cooked on a potbellied wood stove. He drank water from a hand-dug well, and he used an outhouse.

In March, at age 87, he died of a stroke, enigmatic to the end. Howard, it turns out, was rich. Few knew. He bequeathed his entire estate, worth more than $11 million, to create a youth sports park on his 68-acre farm.

The surprise gift has cast Howard in a new light, causing residents to question whether they really knew him.

An editorial in the Medford Mail Tribune opened with this line: ‘We’ll never know if Wes Howard had a Scrooge-like epiphany or if there was always a charitable soul hidden beneath his gruff exterior.’

Gene Glazier, who lived across from the Howard farm for five decades and whose children were chased off the property said he was ‘blown over’ by Howard’s last act. ‘We had no idea.'”

WE HAD NO IDEA.

Nothing in Old Man Howard’s life even remotely suggested he had more than a couple of dimes to rub together. It looked like he had nothing. His value, his worth, according to the people around him, was zero. People were shocked to learn he was worth over $11 million. There was a huge difference between appearances as his community understood them and realities as they genuinely were. Old Man Howard’s life was hidden in a 110-year-old house.

Our lives are hidden in Christ.

As disciples of Jesus, there is also a huge discrepancy between appearances and reality. Our glorious future, our destiny to reign forever with Jesus at the right hand of God, our status as joint-heirs with the Son of the Almighty God is hidden. Those in the world view us as weak and insignificant. They see us as dishonored fools for Jesus, not understanding that we are intimately connected to the creator and ruler of the universe.

It’s comforting to us and empowering for us to understand that this ultimate reality isn’t tied to anything we do. Our holiness doesn’t come from our futile attempts to comply with a long list of do’s and don’ts. Our destiny doesn’t depend on our ability to not sin. Our riches are not tied to our good behavior. It all comes from being in Christ, dying with Christ, being buried with Christ, being raised with Christ, and living this hidden life with Christ. It’s because of Christ. He hides our life. He protects it. He keeps it. He saves it. And he promises us that when he appears again in glory we are also going to appear with him in that same glory.

And our neighbors and our world will say, “We had no idea.”

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Play “Taps” for Texas. The Angels beat the Yankees. The Rangers lost to Seattle. And it’s finally officially over. L.A.’s team in Anaheim clinches the AL West. See former Ranger Mark Teixeira celebrating in the Angels’ clubhouse. It’d be interesting to note how many former Rangers’ players are in the postseason this year. There’s a mess of ’em. Sounds like a great project for Kipi. As long as she doesn’t undertake the effort all alone in a dark room on a rainy day. We’d better keep an eye on her.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Colossians (Page 10 of 11)

The King Is Coming

Christ Is All And Is In All

All Things Hold Together

Clean Up

Christ Is All And Is In All

Hidden With Christ

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