The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Discipleship (Page 19 of 30)

Following Jesus to the Cross

April 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

We don’t ever come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for me to die. What is the meaning of my daily dying to myself and dying for Christ? And dying with Christ? What does it look like? How do I do it? And what does it really mean?

People say Jesus died so I don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to.

As holy children of God and disciples of his Christ, we die every day. We participate every day in the eternal dimensions of Jesus’ death.

“I have been crucified with Christ…” ~Galatians 2:20

“I die every day — I mean that, brothers! ~1 Corinthians 15:31

“You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.” ~Colossians 3:3

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We are called to participate in the death of Jesus. We don’t just stand around and ask questions about the death of Christ. We don’t just talk about it and marvel about it. We live it. The death of Jesus shapes everything about the way we live, how we believe and love, why we do what we do.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the pain and darkness of Calvary where he faithfully and fully submitted to our Father’s will and gave his very life for the sake of the world.

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Tomorrow is Warrior Dash. And I’m not quite ready.

Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course highlighted by runs through waist-deep muddy water, climbs over cargo nets and 20-foot hay bales, crawls under barbed wire and through dirty ditches, and jumps over junk cars and pits of fire.

There are runs like this all over the place. Some of them are called Mud Runs. Some are called Jail Breaks. This Warrior Dash is held every year in Roanoke, just down the street from the Texas Motor Speedway. I’d never heard of this, or any other organized obstacle event, until last year when Greg Hardman and his daughter, Emily, ran it together with some of her college friends. His stories and his pictures were truly inspiring. I even used their experience to illustrate a sermon here last spring.

And several of us caught the fever.

Valerie and I made plans to start training in October. I was going to start eating right. I was going to start running more. (By more, I mean just start running. Period.) I was going to lose 15-pounds. I was going to lift weights and really be ready for this thing in April.

I’m not ready.

None of those things happened. Valerie and I have run together at the Northridge Middle School track a total of five times since the middle of February. We did two-and-a-half miles last night. We’re going to do three miles this evening.

We’re not ready. But we’re very much looking forward to it. Valerie has always been my little adventurer. She’s excited to be doing something so outrageous with her dad. And this will be something I’ll treasure with her forever.

There are at least a dozen of us from Legacy running the Warrior Dash in the morning: John & Suzanne, Bruce & Cathy, Mike & Lisa, Keith & Beth, Josh (who promises to stay right with me), Jason, Margaret, David and, from what I understand, a whole slew of our younger marrieds.

My goal is to finish in one hour or less. And to not have to be carried out in a stretcher.

Peace,

Allan

Watch and Pray

April 13, 2011 / / 2 Comments

What does Christ want us to see in the Garden of Gethsemane? Why did he tell his disciples to watch and pray? Why did he take them with him that night? Why was it so important that they stay awake?

Jesus makes it very clear that night in the garden: he does not want to die. Jesus is sorrowful and troubled. He’s distressed. He’s in agony. He’s facing the most severe test of his life. God is handing him the cup of suffering and death and asking him to drink it. And Jesus doesn’t want to. He shudders in horror at the mission before him. He dreads all of it. His Father is in the process of making him who had no sin to be sin for us. Jesus is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And he wants another way. And he asks for it.

What an amazing scene. Jesus is in great agony. He cries out to his God, “Deliver me!” He prays out loud to his Father, “Rescue me!” He begs, “Save me from this horrible assignment. Let’s do this another way.”

No dove descends. No thunderous voice from heaven assures, “This is my Son.” Only silence. Silence. God has already spoken. Now it’s up to the Son to obey.

And he does. “Not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus overcomes the silence, he fights off the temptation to do what he wants and, through open and honest prayer, he obeys his Father.

“Watch and pray.” “Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Jesus tells his disciples, “Do this with me. Experience this with me. Watch me. If you’re really going to follow me, you’re going to need to know how to do this.”

Jesus wants us to be awake and present and obedient to the way of the Son and the will of the Father. He wants us to accept trial. He wants us to undergo testing. He wants us to say “no” to the temptations to abandon the cross aspects of our calling. Afterall, it’s so much easier to turn our backs on the crown of thorns and just go to church. It’s so much easier to just settle into our pews and into the comforts of our status quo and potlucks and baby blessings.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his loyal subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the garden. It’s in the garden with Jesus, praying these agonizing prayers, where we really express our trust in God. We trust God in the darkness of our sufferings because God walked through the darkness himself.

God wants us to be in fellowship with the sufferings of his Son and the sufferings of his world. Fervent and faithful prayer is where God equips us and empowers us to do it. A stiff upper lip isn’t going to do it. A fierce resolve won’t cut it. New Year’s resolutions won’t work. It happens through open and honest prayer; raw, from the heart, transparent communication with the Father.

After a night of agonizing prayer, Jesus is ready. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

Watch and pray.

Peace,

Allan

Not Of This World

April 5, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My King is not like the rulers of this world. His Kingdom is not of this world. He tells us that. And he shows us that his ways and his methods and his forms are nothing like those of this world.

So why do we keep wanting to use the world’s ways and methods and forms?

Why do we think politics is the way to get things done for God’s Kingdom? Why do we think power and force and voting and petitions and boycotts and campaigns and rallies and protests are the way to accomplish our God’s plans for his creation?

All Christians have to vote Republican because Jesus is against the gay marriage position of the Democrats. No, all Christians have to vote Democrat because Jesus is against the war policies of the Republicans. No, the Church has to support the Republican party because of Jesus’ teachings against abortion. No, the Church has to support the Democratic party because of Jesus’ teachings against the gap between the rich and the poor.

If we’re going to think and talk and act this way, we might as well start waving palm branches like the crowds in Jerusalem who wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman oppressors and establish an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem. Those people wanted to use Jesus for a political revolt. They wanted national and social and economic revolution in the name of the Messiah. They wanted Roman blood to flow in the streets. Gird your loins and grab your swords! God bless Israel!

If we think and talk and act this way, we’re forcing the children of God to choose and then pledge allegiance to the lesser of worldly evils. Jesus did not come so we could be a part of a refurbished and renewed version of the kingdom of the world. Jesus came so we could be a part of the all-new eternal Kingdom of God!

Jesus will never be President of the U.S.A.

One, because he’s not running. Two, because you wouldn’t vote for him if he were running.

Think about Jesus’ platform. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor! Love your enemies! If Jesus had bumper stickers on the back of the donkey he rode into Jerusalem they would say “Be Last!”

“Vote for Jesus! We’re Going to Die!”

Of course, our King doesn’t come with T-shirts and stickers and buttons and hundred million dollar campaigns. He doesn’t save the world with armies and markets and policies. He saves the world through sacrificial love and suffering and service and grace.

Yes, Jesus came to be King. But instead of being crowned with a gold-plated headdress of jewels, he was crowned with painful and penetrating thorns. He did not bear a warrior’s sword or a royal scepter; he was beaten with a whip and a rod. Instead of sitting on a cusioned throne and ruling, Jesus hung on a tree and died. Jesus willingly, deliberately, goes to his own suffering and death for the sake of the world.

If we follow this King as his subjects — and we do! — then we, too, will follow him into Jerusalem to the place of suffering and sacrifice and death. We will say ‘no’ to status and position and glory and wealth and say ‘yes’ to the giving of our own lives. We will reject power and violence and force and accept God’s will and God’s way even in the midst of terrible personal agony. We will refuse to consider our own needs and, instead, be much more concerned with the needs of those around us.

That’s what it means to follow Jesus. To watch him and imitate him. To determine to be right behind him no matter where he goes.

Peace,

Allan

Who Stands Fast?

March 3, 2011 / / 2 Comments

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Eve 1942

The life of a disciple is active, not reactive. It has nothing to do with just talking about faith or teaching religious principles or believing theological ideas or keeping biblical rules. It has everything to do with living one’s whole life in obedience to God’s call through personal action. It doesn’t just require a mind. It requires a body, too.

Ours is a life given to us by God to be lived not in some kind of rigid, cramped, crowded, small, compromised, legalistic way but in a full, wild, joyful, exuberant, cheerful, celebratory way. A way that apprehends and assimilates and then radiates the freedom we have from God in Christ.

The way I see it, a full grasp of the freedom we have in Christ and the grace and mercy we’ve received from our God will come to mean, eventually,  that we are no longer afraid of sin. We’re not worried about messing up. We don’t hold back because of an anxiety over doing something that might displease our God. At the very least — stay with me here — avoiding sin will not be the main thing that drives us as we follow our Lord.

Our Father wants his beloved children to operate out of joy and freedom to do what is good and right, not out of fear of making a mistake. Isn’t that one of the great lessons in Jesus’ story about the servants and the talents in Matthew 25?

We must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. We must act in faith that our God who calls us to live boldly and outrageously for him also promises us that if and when we do mess up in enthusiastic service to our King, he promises forgiveness and consolation and salvation.

The Christian life is an active life. Our God calls us to give our whole selves to him. Brakes off. No looking back. Full speed ahead. He’s not going to punish us when, in pursuit of his will, we might mess up.

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Last Sunday’s sermon on Christ’s return from Revelation 21-22 prompted many, many kind comments and encouragements from dozens of my brothers and sisters here at Legacy. Many had never thought about heaven and earth and God’s ultimate mission in the ways Scripture so plainly paints it. Many seemed refreshed at the biblical promises that God’s will is ultimately going to be done on earth just as it is in heaven. That’s why we’re told to pray it, right? And that’s why we join it. The mission. The salvation objective. Those are the things we’re going to be considering together during Missions Month throughout March.

In a related item, Patrick Mead has posted a hilarious re-cap of all the individuals and groups throughout history who have predicted the return of Christ and the end of the world. Of course, mankind has a 100% fail rate in this useless undeavor. But the list is hilarious. I especially like the parenthetical comments in his list. One mentions the possibility that Van Halen may be the anti-Christ which may or may not, combined with Orwells’ vision, have led to the speculation about the year 1984. There’s a group called the Sword of God Brotherhood that is claiming the end of the world will come in 2017. They say that they alone will be spared and tasked to repopulate the earth. Here’s hoping there’s a Sword of God Sisterhood, too.

You can read the complete list by clicking here.

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I’m 24 hours away from my annual camping trip with my Four Horsemen friends. A weekend of encouragement, prayer, meditation, food, bonding, and at least one unforeseen near-catastophic incident to remember forever. These are the guys. These are the ones. They are my closest friends. They keep me going. They keep me accountable. They challenge me and they exhort me. They mature me in our faith. They inspire me to be a better man, a better husband and dad, a better preacher, a better disciple. Even while we’re throwing rocks at raccoons and making fun of Dan’s always-on survival mode, Jason’s tough guy facade (what a fake!), and Kevin’s wardrobe.

I can’t wait.

Peace,

Allan

Forgetting the Point

January 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Dietrich Bonhoeffer inspires me. I’ve been fascinated by Bonhoeffer since the day Michael Weed introduced me to the Christian author, theologian, and martyr in a theology class at Austin Grad a little over five years ago. Bonhoeffer moves me. Not just because he wrote about true discipleship to Jesus, not just because he preached against the cheap grace he saw accepted and practiced in the Church, and not just because he talked all the time about the ultimate lordship and reign of Christ. Bonhoeffer moves me because he so truly lived it. He embodied it. He gave his life for it.

So I pay attention to Bonhoeffer. He was real. He put his very life on the line for what he preached and wrote about commitment to Jesus and God’s salvation mission in the world. As Paschal once noted, “I tend to believe the witnesses who get their throats cut.” Me, too.

It’s been almost three weeks since I finished reading Eric Metaxas’ hefty biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. I’ve spent several hours since going back over the things I’ve highlighted, re-reading the pages I’ve marked up, trying desperately to will the words and the passion of this great man into my very soul.

There’s so much I want to share with you from this book. His writings about the Church sound as if they were penned yesterday. His understanding of the Gospel is as clear as if he were at those resurrection meals with Jesus. His call for true discipleship to our Lord is challenging. Convicting.

Personal.

Allow me to give you a taste.

Bonhoeffer was greatly troubled by the secularization he saw in the Church. The focus, as he saw it, wasn’t as much on the central Christian doctrines of forgiveness and grace, sanctification and discipleship, resurrection and justice as it was on progress and success, relevancy and status. Note how his observations about the big churches in New York City, written when he was at Union Theological Seminary in 1930, ring just as true today.

“In the place of the church as the congregation of believers in Christ there stands the church as a social corporation. Anyone who has seen the weekly program of one of the large New York churches, with their daily, indeed almost hourly events, teas, lectures, concerts, charity events, opportunities for sports, games, bowling, dancing for every age group, anyone who has heard how they try to persuade a new resident to join the church, insisting that you’ll get into society quite differently by doing so, anyone who has become acquainted with the embarrassing nervousness with which the pastor lobbies for membership — that person can well assess the character of such a church. All these things, of course, take place with varying degrees of tactfulness, taste, and seriousness; some churches are basically ‘charitable’ churches; others have primarily a social identity. One cannot avoid the impression, however, that in both cases they have forgotten what the real point is.”

Ah, the point. What is the point? What is God’s mission for his Church? What do we aim for? What do we live for? What’s the goal? What’s the point?

To seek and to save the lost. To bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. To release the captives and set the prisoners free. To proclaim and to live in the truth that God in Christ has defeated the dark forces of sin and death and Satan and is right now making his dwelling place among us, renewing and restoring all of creation, reconciling the world to himself in righteous relationship so that we will be his people and he will eternally be our God.

It’s hard work. It’s dirty work. It’s grimy and messy. It requires muscle and sweat and blood and tears. It takes great sacrifice. It takes every ounce of everything you’ve got.

But that is the point. Let’s not ever forget the point.

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Today is my great friend Dan Miller’s 50th birthday. In honor of Dan, let’s all repair our cars with duct tape and twistie ties and order extra cheese. On everything.

Happy birthday, Dan. I love you, brother. You mean the world to me.

Allan

The Choice

January 14, 2011 / / 2 Comments

The Word of God confronts us with two ways. The Law and the Prophets, the Psalms and Proverbs, the Gospels and Letters all present us with the choice of two ways.

It’s not about where you’re going to live, what career you’re going to pursue, who you’re going to marry, or what you’ll have for lunch.

It’s the way of life or death. The way of blessings or curses. The way of God or the way of the world.

Yes, this one choice certainly impacts all those others. It encompasses and involves all those other decisions you make about where you work and where you live and who you marry. But there’s only one choice in Scripture: the way of life or the way of death.

God says, “Choose life!” ~Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Jesus says, “I am the Way.” ~John 14:5-7

When we choose Jesus, we choose the way of life and the way of blessing and the way of God. We sign up for a life of following Jesus along the way. We commit to walking behind him in his way. Doing things the way he does them. Speaking like he speaks. Thinking the way he thinks. Acting and loving and forgiving and submitting and obeying and serving and suffering and praying the way Jesus does.

It’s a choice we make every day. Every hour. A conscious and constant decision to allow the Holy Spirit of God to empower us and guide us in the Way of Jesus. It’s that first and continual step in asking God to show you what’s NEXT. In submitting to whatever NEXT he has in store for you. In jumping out of your comfort zone and whole heartedly embracing that NEXT that will further transform you into his holy image.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” ~John 14:6

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Speaking of choices: My annual Tulsa angst has begun. I just received an advance copy of the schedule for this year’s Tulsa Workshop from my friend Terry Rush and I find myself in the same spot I get into every year. How in the world do I choose?

Wednesday’s kick-off evening is easy. No choice. Praise and worship with Kip Long and a keynote address from Randy Harris. Awesome. But the anxiety kicks in early Thursday morning. At 9:00, do I go with the no-brainer, Don McLaughlin, on “Possibility Thinking: Nothing Less Than Winning the World” or Bill Campbell’s “For Church Leaders Only: How to Build a Healthy Congregation?” I could also go hear my friend Josh Ross on “Baptism: Transformed to Join in Jesus’ Mission.” And those are just three of the six possibilities for that hour!

More choices, of course, at 10:00. I’ll probably go with Randy Harris on “Jesus and the Quest for Cool.” But that means saying ‘no’ to Victor Knowles and my friend Dan Bouchelle and three other really interesting speakers and topics.

The 11:00 keynote is easy. No choice. Dusty Rush. No problem. Lunch is easy. I know we’re going to eat at that Mexican restaurant where we always run into Garth Brooks.

But it starts all over again at 2:00. How am I supposed to choose between Al Maxey’s “Breaking the Chains of Rigidity: Frail Hermeneutics” and Terry Rush’s “Adjusting Our Minds to Build Winning Congregations?” Are you kidding?

Same thing at 3:00. Again at 4:00. How does one choose between Marvin Phillips, Edward Fudge, Bobby Valentine, and Randy Harris? How do you choose between “Let the Chains of Spiritual Blinders Fall Away” and “The Unchained Holy Spirit” and “How to Break Free from the Chains of Those Who Won’t Change?”

And that’s just Thursday!

The Tulsa Workshop is one of the spiritual highlights of my every year. Have you never been? You have no idea what you’re missing. I encourage you to make the trip this year. March 23-26. Here’s the website with tons of info. There are special tracks this year for preachers and elders and worship leaders. Programs for the teens. Special stuff for the kids. You’ll be blessed by the worship, the study, the speakers, the fellowship, and the Holy Spirit of God. I really, really, really hope to see you there.

Peace,

Allan

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