The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Page 324 of 497

Life Together: Why?

January 8, 2013 / / 0 Comments

We’re going to keep at it for a couple of days here on Christian commmunity. You know, we say the word “fellowship” today and we immediately think about a big bucket of fried chicken and a green bean casserole. And hopefully somebody brought banana pudding. But in the Bible “fellowship” is much more than just a meal. “Fellowship” is everything! Koininea means sharing. It’s not something you do every fifth Sunday with a crockpot. It’s something you do every single day. Sharing each other’s blessings and each other’s burdens as we grow together and glorify the Lord. This fellowship of the saints is not some ideal that we’re trying to realize; it’s a reality created by God in Christ in which we’re called to participate.

Why? Why love each other? Why serve one another? What’s our motivation? Why would we be so concerned about this?

Well, it’s nothing we have to guess at. It’s spelled out very clearly in all the Christian letters. Our life together reflects God’s work through Christ. It imitates God in Christ. It lives into and embodies what our God is all about.

Paul begins his community directives portion of Romans 12 with “in view of God’s mercy.” Or, in other words, because God has been so merciful to us, we should love and honor and serve one another. In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave us. In Ephesians 5, he directs us to submit to one another out of reverance for Christ. Colossians 3 tells us to bear with each other and forgive one another just as the Lord forgave us. On and on it goes. 1 Thessalonians 5. Hebrews 10. 1 Peter 1. What God in Christ has done for us and with us, we in turn do for and with others in Christian community.

God’s perfect love and sacrifice is fulfilled, it’s made complete, Scripture says, when we love each other with that same love. I forgive you because God forgives me. I serve you because God serves me. I give you what I have because God gives everything he has to me. I’m patient with you, I’m generous to you, I’m kind and gentle and compassionate with you because my heavenly Father is all those things to me. I submit to you because Jesus submitted to the whole world on a cross. I love and forgive my enemies because while I was God’s enemy, he put his only Son on a tree to save me.

That’s why we die to each other. We put to death our own selfish ambitions and vain conceits, we bury our own interests because of all the ways our God in Christ does that for us.

We know what it’s like to be stuck in sin. We know the misery. As C. S. Lewis describes in Screwtape, we know what it’s like to be trapped by the devil, to be drowning in sin, to have “an ever increasing desire for an ever diminishing pleasure.” We know what it’s like. I know what it’s like. And God through Christ saved me. He loves me and rescues me. I know what it’s like.

Why love and serve one another in Christian community?

Because I once was lost, but now I’m found; I was blind, but now I see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vickie dominated our second annual Central Staff Bowl Challenge, leading it almost from start to finish with an uncanny knack for picking all the right games and avoiding all the upsets. Down the stretch Vickie correctly picked eleven of the last fourteen college bowl games, maintaining the impressive lead she built before Christmas by picking the first six games in a row. On the far extreme other end of things, Connie finished dead last. And it wasn’t even close. For those of you who are really interested (sickos!), Hannah finished in second place (blame it on Baylor), Mary and Matthew and I competed for the top spot right into the final week, but our point values were a bit misplaced. Greg and Elaine and George all suffered very disappointing finishes in the middle of the pack. Gail was frustrated to be really bad, but not bad enough to compete for the last place prize. Adam made all his picks while driving his family from Houston to Amarillo at 3:00 in the morning; and it showed. Mark thought picking all the games A-B, A-B, A-B right down the column would be interesting; it wasn’t. Tanner and Kevin were the closest to Connie at the bottom of the pile but, in reality, she was never seriously challenged. Vickie has bragging rights for the next year and she and Connie both get a free lunch when our church staff celebrates the end of the football season and the beginning of the NHL season (what?) at the end of the month.

No sooner had the BCS Championship Game been decided last night (that was like about four minutes into the first quarter; what happened, I was watching the championship and an OU game broke out?!?) when the church staff moved on to the next big contest. With our own sister Mary about to drop anchor with the fourth little McNeil, we’ve all placed our bets on the day Mary dominos, the exact time she gives birth, and the gender of the little tot. This is such a competitive group; I love it! Guesses range from this Saturday (does Hannah have some inside, sister-in-law scoop?) all the way to January 23. I’m pulling for a girl at 10:15 Sunday morning January 20.

Peace,

Allan

Life Together

January 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

For most of us, if not every single one of us, we live in a “Christian-friendly” place. In most of our towns and cities, there is some kind of a Christian gathering or activity happening somewhere every day and night of the week. There is some kind of Christian work or service being done in the name of Jesus somewhere in our cities every day. There are Christian churches on every corner. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a dozen Christians. The people you work with, your neighbors, your waiter, the lady in front of you at the post office — they’re all Christians. Or, at least, most of them would claim to be Christian. Now, without getting into the specifics of their connections to Christ or their discipleship to Jesus, the truth is that most of us can go for days at a time and never see anybody or talk to anybody who wouldn’t say they’re a Christian.

And I wonder if we take that for granted.

Because, I promise you, the apostle Paul and John and Peter and Luke and the other early disciples of Jesus could never have imagined in their wildest dreams a world in which most people claim to be Christian. That concept of open and public worship and devotion to Jesus and open fellowship with a huge community of believers would have been unthinkable. Our group of 750 that meets together at Central on Sunday mornings and all the things we do together and all the ways we come together would have blown those first century Christians out of the water! Our meetings together and our fellowship with one another is so… matter-of-fact. So ordinary. So expected.

The very first Christians could never relate to what we enjoy on a regular basis. To those great men and women of the faith, the physical presence of other Christians — being in the same room with a bunch of other disciples! — was not normal. It was, instead, an uncommon source of great joy and strength.

Paul’s in prison and he calls Timothy to come to him in the last days of his life. He remembers Timothy’s tears when they departed and he longs to see his beloved son in the faith “that I may be filled with joy” (2 Timothy 1:4). He writes to his brothers and sisters in Thessalonica: “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again” (1 Thessalonians 3:10). The great apostle John, in his second letter writes to his brothers and sisters in Asia: “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete” (2 John 12).

There were times in their lives when these great men of God did not have the physical, visible fellowship with other believers that we enjoy on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. And they longed for it. They treasured it. They cherished it. They looked forward to it and savored it with great delight.

Good or bad, I don’t think we can relate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about Christian fellowship in his wonderful little book, Life Together. When he wrote this in 1938, he was running an illegal underground seminary in Nazi Germany. This was five years before he was arrested by Hitler’s Gestapo police, seven years before he was executed by special order of Heinrich Himmler:

“What is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us. Therefore, let him who has the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”

Our Christian friendships should be treasured, never assumed. Our time together should be cherished, never avoided. Opportunities to be together should be seized, never scorned.

May we rededicate ourselves from this day forward to living more closely together in Christian community. May we place the proper perspective and value on the time we get to spend together in the holy presence of our loving and saving Father. And may we better understand how our life together not only serves to transform all of us more into the image of Christ, but serves to redeem this broken world in the name and manner of Jesus.

Peace,

Allan

So Much Glory

January 3, 2013 / / 0 Comments

We’ve just completed a year-long study here at Central of the foundational words of our God in Exodus 34:5-7. This is the passage in which our God describes himself in his own words to Moses and his people at Mount Sinai. It’s the longest such passage in all of Scripture and paramount to the understanding of our heavenly Father and his ways. These words describe God’s eternal nature, his character, his mode of operation, his glory.

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.”

As a church family, we dove into these holy words in January of this past year and worked through them together a little bit each month. By God’s grace, we are trying to assimilate these words into our own lives. We want to live into these words. We want to become, as a people of God, everything these words tell us about our God. And we want to get better at seeing and recognizing the glory of God all around us.

A few weeks ago, as we were getting close to wrapping up the series, I asked our congregation to submit photos that, to them, reflected this eternal glory of God. Send me the pictures, I begged, that communicate God’s faithful love, that demonstrate his patience, that speak to his great forgiveness, that represent his holiness, that show his compassion and grace. Send me pictures that, to you, show God’s glory. And the pictures came in by the dozens.

Nearly a hundred different pictures accompanied by nearly a hundred different stories, representing God’s glory in nearly a hundred different and beautiful ways. Our enormously talented worship minister, Kevin Schaffer, arranged all the pictures and set them to music in three separate slide shows our church family enjoyed together during the sharing of communion on Sunday January 30. (You can see all three videos by clicking here.)

And I learned so much.

I learned about grace and forgiveness from Andrew and Stephanie and Evie. Mike showed me the connection between a newborn baby and a glorious sunrise. Mary Ellen spoke of God’s glory as reflected in her parents’ marriage of 73 years and John Todd saw it in his mother’s long and faithful friendship with Marilyn. I learned that Lyndsay was baptized by Paul Sneed, that Shirlene’s kids weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to move back to Amarillo, and that Joe and Margie once saved Becky’s life. My brothers and sisters at Central see the glory of God in hummingbirds and rainbows, in mountains and sunsets and in pink balloons at a sweet teenager’s funeral. Josh and Brittany see God’s faithfulness in their chocolate lab, Connie sees God’s patience in the spiritual journey of her grandmother, and many of us experience God’s grace in Judy and Linda as they so courageously battle cancer. Pictures taken in Africa and New Mexico, Brazil and Oklahoma, Canada and right here at home. There is so much of God’s glory. God’s glory is everywhere, testifying to his love, reminding us of his grace, showing us his forgiveness, witnessing to his faithfulness.

Through those pictures and the stories, I have learned so much about my church family at Central. I’ve seen inside your hearts a little more this past month. You’ve revealed to me a little more about where you’re coming from and how you think and how you experience God. That makes me a better preacher today than when this project began. And we’re all interested in that!

I pray that in thinking about these pictures and then sending them in, we all were forced to consider God’s nature in new and exciting ways. I hope we’ve all grown to begin seeing the presence and the power of our God in places we’ve never before thought to look. And my desire is that we will all seek to reflect that same heavenly glory so that our kids, our neighbors, our city, if facing a similar assignment, would feel compelled to send in pictures of us.

Peace,

Allan

Heart of a Disciple: Submission

January 1, 2013 / / 0 Comments

As we begin a brand new year with our brand new re-commitments to our Lord and to his eternal Kingdom, let’s consider a final trait of Christ’s twelve apostles that were lacking in most everybody else who ran into Jesus during his ministry. That last trait is submission. Or you might call it obedience.

Jesus’ disciples recognized that they needed his instruction. No matter how harsh they sometimes were, they knew they needed to apply Jesus’ teachings to their lives. Now, they were not perfect students. Not by any stretch. Sometimes Jesus was angry at them. Frustrated. I’m sure he was sick of them sometimes. When, at the drop of a hat, they’re wanting to call down fire from heaven and burn out a whole village. When they wanted to censor other followers who were teaching in Jesus’ name but not doing things exactly as they were doing them. In Matthew 17, these disciples can’t cast a demon out of a sick boy and Jesus says, “How much longer must I put up with you?” If you’re a school teacher or a parent, you can relate to our Lord’s exasperation. When Peter got sidetracked during a critical moment, Jesus called him Satan.

Yet these apostles continually repented and re-repented and re-submitted themselves to the lordship of Jesus and his teachings. One minute, yes, they’re arguing over who will be the greatest in the Kingdom, but the next minute they’re submitting to a foot-washing lesson on selfless service. Peter denies Jesus three times and then enjoys a breakfast on the beach with Jesus, repenting and accepting forgiveness and recommitting to submission and obedience.

Humility, trust, and submission. You can’t know a person has those traits by looking at his SAT scores. But if one doesn’t possess these qualities in increasing measure, one cannot understand Jesus the way his first disciples did. These are absolutely essential qualities for a follower of the Lord. They’re indispensable traits that give a person the ears to hear what Jesus is saying and the eyes to see what Jesus is revealing. Because Jesus is not the kind of teacher everybody gets.

He teaches in parables and questions and difficult language to make sure their level of understanding is never past their level of personal involvement. He made them dig. He made them get invested and involved. He made them sacrifice. Their personal relationship is a major part of Jesus’ teachings. With Jesus, you don’t just listen and then regurgitate facts and ideas. You have to have a change of heart. If you don’t have the right kind of heart, you can’t really comprehend everything Jesus is doing.

It’s never merely informational with our great rabbi. It’s transformational. His teaching always starts and finishes in the heart.

May we each approach our Lord and Master with humility, trust, and submission. May we see with his eyes and hear with his ears. And as we learn, may our hearts grow and be transformed and become one with his and with one another’s.

Amen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Peace,

Allan

 

Heart of a Disciple: Trust

December 31, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Another of the qualities that separated the Twelve from everybody else who interacted with Jesus during his ministry here was their great capacity to trust. They trusted Jesus completely. Entirely. Unflinchingly.

I’m ashamed to admit that more than a couple of times in my life I’ve been sucked into the buy 14 CDs for a penny scam. It took several times, but I don’t trust those kinds of offers anymore. We don’t trust Joe Isuzu. We have a hard time trusting politicians, lawyers, and used car salesmen. And preachers. Cynicism and skeptism are second nature to us.

But Jesus is no used car salesman. He doesn’t ask you to follow him so he can take what’s yours and make it his. He seeks you out to save you, to enjoin you in an eternal relationship. But Jesus still didn’t inspire awe and faith in everyone who saw him or heard him teach. Not everyone decided to follow him. Not everyone believed him. It takes a trusting heart to be moved by Jesus.

The apostles left everything. They left homes and family and jobs and security and comfort for rejection and ridicule and uncertainty and suffering. They followed him all the way to Jerusalem, knowing they were heading straight for trouble.

Jesus says, “Trust me.”

“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me,” he says. “Trust me.”

The apostles deemed Jesus trustworthy. Is he? Is Jesus as trustworthy as he claims to be?

Look back over your own life, your own experiences with him. Every single time he’s warned you that some action would be harmful to you by calling it “sin,” he’s been exactly right. Every time. Every time his teachings directed you to make the better and tougher choice, he’s been right. Every time. When he promises to take care of you, he’s always right. He’s never been wrong. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes years, to see it and understand it. But his track record is spotless. It’s perfect. Because his motivation — pure love — is perfect.

Jesus says, “Trust me.”

Do you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Dallas Cowboys are done before New Year’s Eve. Again. They finish the season at 8-8. Again. They lose in a win-and-get-in finale. Again. Tony Romo throws a critical late-game interception. Again. It’s the same old story for these same old Cowboys who are 128-128 since 1997.

For the third time in the past five years, the Cowboys lost the last game of the regular season when a victory would have put them in the playoffs. For the sixth time in seven tries, Tony Romo lost a do-or-die elimination football game, throwing as many picks last night as he had in the past two months. The Cowboys still have but one lousy playoff win in the past 16 years. And counting…

I feel for Jason Garrett. As a head coach, the guy’s never taken any team to the playoffs, on any stage, at any level. So I’m not sure how qualified he is to be coaching the Cowboys. His repeated mismanagement of game situations late in the 2nd and 4th quarters is troubling. But I feel for him. I don’t think he’s being given a completely fair opportunity here. He’s saddled by his GM with a defensive coordinator who couldn’t possibly be more different than him in personality and style. (Not to mention, Rob Ryan also has never taken a defense to the playoffs on any stage, at any level.) Jerry Wayne’s personnel moves on the offensive line have doomed Garrett’s offense for the past three seasons. And his loyalty to Romo has crippled this team’s present and jeopardized it’s future.

Injuries this year are a legitimate factor for the Cowboys. But not any more so than they are for all the other teams in the NFL in December. DeMarcus Ware hobbling around last night without his right arm would have been inspirational had he actually made any plays. He didn’t need to be out there. The news this morning that he’ll have surgery this week on his shoulder and elbow tells us how badly he is hurt. Not having five or six defensive starters they had in early October wasn’t helpful, no. Losing receivers Austin and Bryant and Harris late last night wasn’t ideal.

But then, their absences had nothing to do with that late Romo interception.

The Cowboys were in a position to sneak into the playoffs. Again. Momentum was with the Cowboys late in the fourth quarter. Again. And Romo threw the pick. Again.

Pretty soon, Garrett’s going to lose this team. They stay at .500 season after season. They remain near the top of the list of most penalized teams in the league. They keep missing the playoffs. I don’t know how much longer these guys are going to buy what Garrett’s selling. But, again, I’m not convinced it’s his fault.

The one constant here is Jerry Wayne. The owner and GM seemed angry after the game last night. He refused to talk about coaches or player personnel. He said only that they needed to make some changes in the way they’re doing things. The last time Jerry Wayne took a close look in the mirror and saw incompetence, he hired Bill Parcells. That’s not going to happen this offseason. Maybe one more year of .500 ball and mistakes and missed opportunities and watching other teams play in the postseason. Maybe one more year.

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑