The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Salvation Belongs to Our God

December 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Red Sea crossing in Exodus 14 is the ultimate foundational event that creates and identifies the people of God. And we always refer to it as the Exodus. But you may be interested to know that the word “exodus” never occurs one time in the actual narrative. The Hebrew words used in the book of Exodus to refer to the creation and redemption of God’s people are these:

ga’al – to protect or preserve the integrity of the family or clan

padah – to pay the purchase price to free a captive or a slave

ha’aleh – to cause to go up

hevi – to cause to bring in

hotsi – to cause to go out

As Israel is delivered from Egyptian bondage and saved through the waters of the sea, the focus of the activity is on God and what he’s doing. God is doing all of it. Israel is completely helpless and powerless to contribute one thing to the salvation process. It’s all on God. Israel’s job is to trust God, to “stand firm,” to “be still,” and to “see.” God is the one who brings them out and delivers them and saves them with his strong arm and outstretched hand.

Just as the Israelites passed through the waters of the sea, we pass through the waters of baptism into a new life in the Father through Christ Jesus. And, again, our God is the one redeeming and saving. We bring nothing to the table except our willingness to trust him and submit to him and his salvation purposes.

“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” ~1 Peter 2:10

Peace,

Allan

The Second Tablet

December 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

When God is reminding his people of the covenant promises in Deuteronomy, he vows that if they worship idols they will lose their land. If they commit idolatry/adultery with the foreign gods, if they worship these other dieties, God will send them into exile. He made those promises over and over again in Deuteronomy.

And the people worshiped idols.

Almost immediately upon entering the Promised Land, God’s people began worshiping the foreign gods. They built high places and shrines, they offered sacrifices and song, they worshiped idols. Off and on for more than 700 years, God’s people worshiped these false gods. For over seven centuries, our Lord showed tremendous patience with his people. He exhibited great restraint in not following through on his promises to strip them of their land for these atrocious acts of rebellion. They turned their backs on YHWH. They disrespected his name. They ignored him and sometimes cursed him. But our Father was long suffering with his chosen people.

In Amos, we see for the very first time in Scripture a distinction among God’s holy people between the rich and the poor. Our God speaks through the prophet and points out that the rich were getting richer at the expense of the poor. The orphan, the widow, and the stranger in the gate were not just being ignored, they were being exploited by the wealthy, for the benefit of the elite. 

“They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name.
They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge.
In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.”
~Amos 2:6-8

“You hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth.
You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain…
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
~Amos 5:10-12

God points out the injustice against the poor, the systemic oppression against those most defenseless in society, the exploitation of those who are unable to help themselves, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and he condemns it. This is completely contrary to God’s eternal plan for his people, this is exactly the opposite of what he’s wanting to do through his children for the sake of the rest of the world. So he condemns them and he takes away their land.

In less than 25 years.

It’s almost immediate. In less than one generation, God sends the Assyrians into his chosen nation and, in a divine act of punishment, demolishes them for their sins against the poor.

That’s astonishing, isn’t it?

It appears in Amos that repeated breaking of the “first tablet” of the Law — the commandments dealing with love and God and respect for his holy name — isn’t nearly as offensive to God as the breaking of the “second tablet” which deals with love of neighbor and respect for our own brothers and sisters. Jesus and all the rabbis before him taught that love of God was the most important command and love of neighbor the second. I believe that is still true. But it seems that God shows much more patience when we sin directly against him than when we sin against the poor and the weak. It looks like God’s wrath is quickly aroused when we sin against the marginalized and the defenseless. He won’t tolerate us abusing or ignoring the “least of these.”

There are at least two lessons here: One, we must pay careful attention to our attitudes and our actions regarding the weak and the poor. The comments we make, the jokes we tell, the thoughts we think, the deeds we do or don’t do, the decisions we make — so many of these things impact the defenseless people around us. We should be careful to honor them. We should be diligent to help them. And, two, in the manner of our Lord, we should be much more offended when someone treats another harshly and much less offended when we ourselves are treated harshly. We should show more patience and more understanding when we are neglected or harmed. We should be quick to speak up and act out when the least among us are similarly neglected or harmed.

Amos teaches us that God takes our behavior seriously. Our worship is meaningless to us and to our world, and an offense to our Lord, if it doesn’t compel us to serve others in his name and in his manner every day.

Peace,

Allan

 

In Shipp Shape

December 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

It’s a tricky thing to bring a highly respected biblical scholar / professor into a church setting to teach a Bible class or preach a sermon. Some of these guys can be a little stuffy. They can use too many big words. They can have a difficult time relating to and communicating with the average guy or gal in the pews. At best, a lot of these scholars are just awkward in front of a bunch of people in church; at worst, some of them can be downright narcissistic and rude.

We brought Dr. Mark Shipp from Austin Graduate School of Theology up to Central this past weekend with no worries.

For four hours on Saturday morning, Mark presented his class notes on the Minor Prophets to 25 of our adult Bible class teachers. And for another hour yesterday, he spoke to 550 of us in a combined Bible class, kicking off our ten weeks congregational series on the Book of the Twelve. And the Shipp who inspired me while sitting at his feet for 22 months at Austin Grad also inspired our church. Shipp’s passion for the Word of God that captured me in his graduate courses also captured our church. His knowledge of the Scriptures and the application he always made to my life was appreciated by the congregation as they realized the application in their own individual and church settings. And it was really quite neat.

The passion I have for the Old Testament comes, in large part, from Dr. Shipp. The ways I interpret the Hebrew Scriptures, the ways I see God revealed, the ways I see our Christ predicted, all come from Shipp. When I use words like mishpat and hesed and tsedaqa, they have come from Shipp. My confidence that every word of the Old Testament is relevant for God’s children today is a gift from Dr. Shipp.

When Madison, our sweet sixteen-year-old sister here at Central died almost a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought to go first to Habakkuk for comfort and grace and understanding for our congregation, except for Dr. Shipp.

I had so much fun this weekend sitting at Dr. Shipp’s feet again. I learned so much. Again. I enjoyed talking to him about raising teenaged daughters. I was blessed to introduce him as my teacher and my friend. I was honored that he expressed so much admiration for our church. We talked together about reading and writing, teaching and preaching. We talked about God’s people. I learned much more about Dr. Shipp’s story, his family, his history. Shipp had fun talking Longhorns football with us at Blue Sky on Saturday, holding back a bit (only a bit) when he discovered that Tim’s not that opposed to replacing Mack Brown, and falling just short of admitting that the cheeseburger and vanilla shake had indeed changed his life . I think he also had fun critiquing my sermon yesterday (Yes, I know the noise and terror at Sinai was intended for God’s people, not the nations! I know!).

We’re better off as a church family for Dr. Shipp having spent the weekend with us. Our teachers are more confident. They’re armed and equipped and maybe even a little dangerous. And I’m thankful. He relates to us and he inspires us. And I’m thankful. I can’t wait to dive in to the Minor Prophets in our Bible classes together this next Sunday, knowing how ready we truly are.

Peace,

Allan

For the Sake of Others

November 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In keeping with his promises to Israel, God saves them. The Hebrew Scriptures make it very plain, telling in great detail using God’s own words, the how and the why of God saving Israel. “I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”

“My treasured possession:” royal property belonging to God purely by his own will and desire.

“The whole earth is mine:” the Lord can do as he pleases; and it pleases him to make Israel his own.

“A kingdom of priests, a holy nation:” Israel is different; set apart from the other nations.

Yes, the people belong to God and, yes, they are called to be separate from the rest of the world. But Israel is not separate in that they live in isolation from the other nations. As holy and priestly, Israel is the means by which God will save and bless the entire world. The purpose of God’s people is international in scope. It’s nature is global. Israel is a holy and priestly nation that God has chosen to work through to bring about his eternal plans for mankind.

God calls his people to live holy lives, to stick out like a sore thumb in the ways they live. Why? For the sake of others! To save the world!

God has created a people to be the means for reconciling the nations to himself. And when God’s people disobey God’s laws, when they live in ways that are not holy, when God’s people do what everybody else is doing, yes, it has serious implications for their relationship with God. But, much bigger than that, it thwarts the salvation plans of heaven for everybody else.

Look at the golden calf.

“Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.” ~Exodus 32:25

Rather than redeeming the nations, Israel rejects the God who saved her and becomes a laughingstock, a point of ridicule. As a result, the world is less attracted to the true God than ever before. All throughout the Old Testament, Israel’s disobedience to God leads to their reproach by the rest of the world. And that’s totally counter to God’s purpose for his people. He made his people for the sake of others.

Even in the exile, where Israel felt the full weight of the consequences of her disobedience, the focus is on how this is impacting the salvation of the rest of the world. God promises to bring the remnant of Israel back to the land in order to renew his universal purpose in calling Israel in the first place.

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” ~Isaiah 49:6

Even in the darkest period of Israel’s history, when her own release from captivity was the most pressing concern, God reminds his people of the broader picture. He reminds them that it’s not about them. Why are they going to be released? Why are they going to be rescued? For the sake of others, not themselves. To bring salvation to the rest of the world.

As God’s people and devout followers of his Son, it’s not about us. It’s about the rest of the world. Your church is not about you and the people you sit with, it’s about your city. Your Bible class or your small group is not about you and your friends, it’s about your neighborhood, your community. It’s not about us. It’s not about any of us. It’s about God using us to save others. We are saved, we are brought together in him, we exist for the sake of others.

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you… that they may see your good deeds and glorify God.” ~1 Peter 2:9-12

Peace,

Allan

Obama Saves Jerry Wayne

November 28, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I never sign petitions. You know my feelings about petitions and boycotts. Any sign of power, any show of force, any threat at all in an effort to get my/our way is in direct opposition to the ways of our Lord and the manner of his Kingdom. Those are the ways of the world, not the ways of Christ.

On Monday, I swallowed hard and made an exception. A Dallas Cowboys fan in Georgia had posted a petition on the White House website urging President Obama to remove Jerry Jones as the team’s owner and general manager. And I signed it. I’ve long held that the only way to get Jerry Wayne to sell the team is if they go 0-16 for several years in a row. If they lose every single game for a decade, maybe then Jerry would lose enough money that he would be forced to walk away. But nobody goes 0-16 anymore. It’s an impossible dream. I’ve been rooting against them every Sunday since 1996 and it’s impossible. So I signed the petition.

The petition is lacking in creativity and short on length. But it’s long on emotion and style:

“We, the citizens of the great state of Texas and Dallas Cowboys fans worldwide, have been oppressed by an over-controlling, delusional, oppressive dictator for way too long. We request the Executive Branch’s immediate assistance in removal of owner and GM Jerry Jones. His incompetence and ego have not only been an extreme disappointment for way to long, but moreover, it has caused extreme mental and emotional duress.”

So I signed it. I was signature number 191. Yesterday morning the total number of signatures was a little over 22,000, less than three thousand away from the total number needed to require an official response from President Obama. But when I checked it yesterday afternoon, the petition had been removed from the White House website. Something about a violation of “terms of participation.” I have no idea what that means. But I’m running out of ideas for getting Jerry Wayne out of the picture.

Thanksgiving Day’s humiliating loss to the Redskins brought the Cowboys overall record since 1997 to 125 wins and 126 losses. For the past fifteen years, Jerry Wayne’s Cowboys are 125-126. They’re a .500 team. Have been for a long, long time.

I think back to the last of the Landry years. The team was struggling. Three straight losing seasons, including that last 3-13 record in 1988. People were calling for Landry’s head. The game had passed him by. He was being outcoached. Tex Schramm was being out GM’ed. Gil Brandt was being out scouted. It was time for a change. Remember? When Jerry Wayne purchased the team on that dark February day in 1989, he too chimed in with what was wrong with the Cowboys. They deserved better, he said. Their loyal fans deserved more. The Cowboys are nothing less than the greatest franchise in football history and Jerry insisted that he was there to right the ship, to restore the luster to the glorious silver star. Yeah, things had gotten pretty bad.

Do you think Jerry realizes that his Cowboys of today are even worse than those Cowboys of Landry’s last years?

125-126 over the past fifteen seasons.

Tom Landry went a combined 36-34 over his last five seasons. But just two seasons before that he had taken the Cowboys to their third straight NFC Championship Game. They actually won the NFC East in 1985. Jerry’s Cowboys are 39-36 in their past five seasons and a long, long, long, long time removed from their last appearance in a conference championship game. Jerry Wayne’s Dallas Cowboys are in worse shape now — and have been for a long time — than when he bought the team. If he truly cared about the franchise and its history and its fans and its place in American sports, he’d do the honorable thing and sell the team.

What better way to earn bi-partisan support in the White House than for the President to remove Jerry from the Cowboys? Who could possibly argue against it? It would be universally heralded as the most important thing a U. S. President has actually done for the common citizens in decades. Even Sean Hannity would nod in approval.

But Obama wouldn’t touch it. And we’re left with continuing to root against the Cowboys in order to save the team.

Now, where’s the link to a petition to move the New York Yankees to Mumbai?

Peace,

Allan

Augustine’s Pain

November 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

“My own way of expressing myself almost always disappoints me. I am anxious for the best possible, as I feel it in me before I start bringing it into the open in plain words; and when I see that it is less impressive than I had felt it to be, I am saddened that my tongue cannot live up to my heart.” ~Augustine

Augustine the preacher penned these words more than 1,600 years ago. And from time to time I, too, feel his great pain. Not all the time; not every single Sunday; not even every month or so. But there are times when I am almost crushed by a painfully horrible sermon that I’ve delivered.

The old joke goes that the only thing worse than finishing a sermon and realizing it wasn’t very good is just getting started preaching a sermon and realizing it isn’t very good.

I was there this past Sunday. I don’t know what it was. I think I tried to say too much in too short amount of time. I think I tried to do too much. I think the subject matter (Exodus 34:7b) was too complex and difficult. Maybe I was distracted by some heavy things we had just finished discussing in our Bible class. Maybe I was a little travel logged from the drive home from our family Thanksgiving back to Amarillo that was made a bit longer by the blowout in Bowie. Maybe it was the sparse, sparse, sparse crowd in our worship center. Maybe it was none of those things at all. But for whatever reason, or reasons, nothing was flowing. Nothing was communicating. Ten minutes into the sermon, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. And I just knew 650 other people in the room were feeling the same way.

When it was over, I couldn’t hardly pray with our brother who had walked down to the front to ask for the prayers of our church family. I found myself asking God to forgive me instead of him, to help me instead of him. It’s the first time I’ve ever welcomed a person responding to the sermon by grabbing that person’s hand and begging God to help me.

And I sat there through most of our communion time wondering how weird it would be if I stood up one more time — to the shock and horror of the congregation, no doubt — to apologize for delivering such a poor sermon. I don’t think it was a homilitical homicide, as my friend Jason Reeves says about really catastrophic sermons that can set a church back several decades theologically. It wasn’t like that. It just wasn’t very good.

I had great hopes for the sermon. I was prepared to preach about the utter holiness of our God and the utter repulsiveness of our sins against that holiness and the unexplainable gift of his grace and forgiveness that allows us to dwell in his presence anyway. I was ready. But it just fell flat. And it was crushing me. My tongue didn’t live up to what was in my heart. I felt I had really let everybody down.

I walked to my study — pitiful, pathetic, sad — and was greeted by an email from one of our teenagers at Legacy, a great young man with an eager spirit for our Lord, getting ready to finish school now at ACU and enter the ministry. He wrote the email from Fort Worth at 11:15, right in the middle of my lousy sermon:

Allan, you’re probably preaching right now but I want to say something to you. Years ago, you challenged this church at Legacy and me to consider others. You spoke of how it didn’t make sense for anyone to take communion alone. You encouraged us to move, and some did, but you instilled something in my heart and soul that I will never forget. We don’t have to be alone in this life, we don’t have to do it on our own.

This morning I was encouraged by the Spirit to go sit by a brother of mine who was by himself. I know the Spirit compelled me, encouraged me, and supported me to do it past all the lies that Satan was filling my head with.

You know this, but you have made a difference in my life and I am blessed to call you a mentor, a brother, and a friend.

Thank you for being bold enough to spur people on to act. You are a servant of God and I am blessed to have you in my life. I want to tell you that I have been praying for you and am intentionally praying right now that the words from your mouth will encourage Central and others to believe in the Spirit and act. To be bold! To know that God is with them and that they are not doing it alone.

Reading this young man’s email didn’t cause me to smile. Reading it a second and third and fourth time didn’t bring me to laugh out loud. It buckled my knees and brought into sharp focus my own pettiness and shortsightedness, my own sin in the presence and service of God. It reminded me that every sentence I speak from the Word of God will serve an eternal purpose that I’m not always going to recognize. It reminded me that our Father is in charge of our sermons, not our preachers. He alone inspires, he alone speaks, he alone puts his Word exactly where it needs to go and when it needs to go there and he alone causes it to grow and bear Kingdom fruit to his eternal glory and praise.

Who am I, sweating out a sermon that I don’t think stacks up to my standards, when 300 miles away a young man is begging God in trusting faith to use my words, no matter how poorly written or delivered, to encourage the saints? Who am I? I am shallow and weak.  I have a big ego and a low self esteem, a terribly dangerous combination. And I can get really defensive. I take things way too personally and I worry a lot.

And when I get in a really weird place — not every single Sunday, not even every month or so — our God sends a divinely ordained messenger to lift me up and remind me of who I am and who God is. This is God’s work, not mine. These are his sermons, this is his Church, not mine. Thank you, Lord, for not destroying me. Thank you, God, for reminding me and encouraging me. Thank you for using me at my best and at my worst.

Amen

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