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People People

May 10, 2011 / / 0 Comments

My Jesus is a people person. He absolutely loves a crowd.

Yeah, there were times when our Lord went alone into the desert or climbed a mountain to pray. But it’s much more typical in the Gospels for Jesus to be interacting with people. The eyewitnesses paint a picture of Jesus constantly mixing it up with the multitudes, meeting strangers on the road, hanging out with family and friends. Mostly Jesus is known for eating and drinking with gusto in the homes of sinners and saints, with the prostitutes and the Pharisees, men and women, Gentiles and Jews.

Praying with people. Worshiping with people. Walking with people. Fishing with people. Teaching and debating with people. Laughing and crying with people.

Jesus was a supremely social, communal person. Whatever it was that the Father called the Son to do, he had no interest in doing it by himself. Just a casual glance at Jesus is enough to tell us today that we are fully living as God-created humans, not in our solitude and isolation, but in our relationships and connections with others.

We are people people.

We need God, yes. And we so desperately need one another. You can’t do this faith solo.

Peace,

Allan

Ordering Jesus Around

May 9, 2011 / / 2 Comments

The royal official in John 4 orders Jesus to do what he wants. He commands Jesus. This ruler has a sick son, a son who is dying in Capernaum, and he tells Jesus, “Come down before my child dies.” He’s ordering Jesus. He’s telling Jesus what to do.

And Jesus complies.

Ah, see, you didn’t think it was going this way, did you?

This royal official is a man of means and a man of power. This man is well connected. He’s got pull. This man spends most of every day ordering people around. And when he finds out there’s a healer out there who can take care of his boy, he rushes to command Jesus to do just that.

And Jesus agrees. He does it. Boom! Right there on the spot. The boy is healed immediately.

The royal official had no idea who Jesus really was. He didn’t know. He had completely misunderstood Jesus’ mission, his purpose for living on earth. Jesus was a man who could meet the ruler’s immediate and personal needs. This person was only thinking of himself and his family.

And it seems that Jesus was OK with that.

Please know that people are going to come to you, also, to command you and order you around to meet their own felt needs. People are going to misunderstand you and your mission. They’re not going to care a whole lot about your call to ministry or your obligations to our Lord and the big picture concerns of his Kingdom. Your Kingdom priorities and your Kingdom goals won’t matter to some of the people who will direct you to do what they want you to do no matter what. Sometimes people will approach you in order to use you; they will come to you intent on exploiting you so they can continue living their comfortable lives.

Our job, as I understand it, is to show them the love of Christ and share with them his compassion. We’re called by our Savior to give these people his blessings and his mercy and grace. We offer to them out of the abundance of what we’ve been given by God. Jesus loves people. And his greatest desire is to help them, to take care of them, even when they come to him to misuse him.

This is not a call to promote unhealthiness or immaturity in God’s Church. Sometimes the people who have been disciples of Jesus the longest are the very ones who will exploit you and your ministry in their own selfish interests and for their own self-serving purposes. Catering to them is not what I’m talking about.

The story at the end of John 4 is about compassion and the love of Jesus for those who don’t know any better. Jesus took orders from a guy who didn’t even know who he was. I suppose I can, too.

Peace,

Allan

Happy Mother’s Day

May 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.”  ~Old Jewish Proverb

On a literal level, we certainly disagree with the proverb. God is most definitely everywhere. But in a symbolic sense, I dearly love what the proverb proclaims. For we do see our God in our mothers.

When our mothers cook for us our favorite meals, sew the patch in the knee of our blue jeans, and slip us the cash for the movie, they are reflecting the provision of our God who always meets the needs of his children.

When our mothers hold us closely through the thunderstorm, watch us as we cross the street, and insist on meeting all our friends, they are mimicking the protection we’re promised by our Father.

When they wipe away the tears and apply the band aids and force the cough medicine down our throats, they are shadowing our God, the Comforter and Healer.

Our mothers love us unconditionally, despite the messes we make and the trouble we cause. Even when we don’t listen and we don’t behave, mom’s love never wanes. She disciplines us when we stray from the path. She forgives us when we wreck her carpet or her drapes. And she encourages us to be everything our God has created us to be.

Our mothers teach us right from wrong. They listen inexhaustibly. They rejoice in our success. And our setbacks cause their hearts to break. They know what we’re going to say before we say it. Our mothers brag about us to their friends and they defend us to our peers. They believe in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves. They lead us from in front and they push us from behind.

And there’s nothing that could ever separate us from their love. Ever.

Yes, our God is everywhere. But so too, it seems, are our mothers.

There’s another old proverb out there that says an ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. I’m not touching that one.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Beat LA!

Allan

Baptism Sirens

May 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I’ve got an idea. No, no, this is a good idea. Really. This isn’t like pre-wallpapered sheetrock or cell phones. This is really a good idea.

What about baptism sirens?

Yes, baptism sirens. Why don’t we install baptism sirens throughout our church building? I think we should do this immediately.

A sweet young lady from our community, a junior at Richland High School who’s been coming to Legacy with her friends for a few months now and studying with Jason and a couple of others, confessed Jesus as Lord last night and put on our Savior in baptism. Sarah was added to God’s eternal Kingdom. Sarah was saved last night, forgiven of all her sins. God’s Spirit began living in Sarah immediately. She was transformed right before our eyes!

And while there were many of us who made it to the worship center to participate in Sarah’s baptism and congratulate her and pray with her and meet her parents, there were many more people out in the hallways. There were dozens of us in the gym and in the parking lots, hanging out in the atrium and in the kitchen. Not everybody knows when a baptism is happening. Not everybody gets the news every time.

Baptism sirens would change that. Can you imagine? The sirens go off throughout the building, inside and outside. A loud voice booms over the church intercom, “Attention, please! God Almighty is delivering another person from sin and death! God is acting on his Word and being faithful to his promises! That thing we teach and preach and dedicate our lives to and rest our hopes in is actually happening right now! Would all confessing Christians please make their way to the worship center. Thank you.”

The world needs to stop when someone is being baptized. When a person is baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, we need to drop everything and give it the complete and undivided attention it deserves. A baptism is the sure sign of God’s grace. It’s proof of his forgiveness. It stands for his mercy and love. It testifies to his present and continuing action among his people in the world. It’s God right there in front of us, saving somebody, defeating Satan, stealing another soul from hell, giving another person eternal life, fulfilling his promises for all time. Right there in front of us!

Why would we miss it? Why would we pass up an opportunity to personally participate in a sin-forgiving, life-bestowing, history-altering, cosmic event? Why would we eschew the chance the hug these new babes in Christ, to cheer them, to pat them on the back, to show them by our presence and our actions that what they’re doing — No! What God is doing! — is just as important as we claim it is?

It must be because not everybody hears the announcement. There can be no other reason. We don’t get the information to all the people.

Baptism sirens would fix that.

Peace,

Allan

Take Heart!

May 4, 2011 / / 1 Comment

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” ~John 16:33

Jesus tells us plainly — from the mountain, around the table, along the way — that this world is openly hostile to the things of God. For disciples to live in the world means we have to experience struggle and conflict and even battles. The world’s values and vision and morals and ethics are opposed to ours in Christ. And living here isn’t easy.

Not for Christians.

Living right here right now is hard.

I spent an hour with Quincy this morning in our prayer room, lifting up dozens of requests to our Father in Jesus’ name. The things my brothers and sisters have written on those requests tell me that we have struggles and battles. I’ve spent more than a few cumulative hours over the past four or five days in my study counseling with people, praying with people, crying and agonizing with people. There’s nothing easy about this.

Jesus never pretended that it would be. He knows it’s tough. He lived it, remember? And he reminds us that while we’re having this trouble, we can also be filled with courage and strength and hope because he has overcome all of it.

Jesus tells us, “I have faced your enemy and I have conquered him. I have fought your battles on the same fields of human experience where you fight, and I’ve won. I’ve already done it for you. And I’m doing it right now in you and for you.”

If we abide in him, if we stay connected to him, his eternal victory belongs to us.

Wow. That’s really good news.

Peace,

Allan

Christian Response

May 3, 2011 / / 7 Comments

If you’re still interested in reading about and weighing in on the Christian response to the death of Osama bin Laden, allow me to link you up.

Corey Mullins, our Legacy missionary to Wollongong, Australia writes his reflections in his Mentalcourse blog here. In an email exchange yesterday, this faithful man of God considered the oxymoron, “Christian hatred.” Corey wonders why Christians look and act so much like the world and concludes it’s all about spiritual formation: “One hour on Sunday just isn’t enough to conform our thought patterns to Scripture. But, sadly, that’s all most of our people are getting.” Corey goes on to tell me about a friend of his in Korea whose church is open every morning from 7:00-8:00am for Bible reading and prayer. Many people — actually, Corey says “most” of the church’s members — come in on their ways to work to pray and meditate on the words of God. I wonder about us here at Legacy where, for almost two-and-a-half-years now, our elders and ministers open our prayer rooms every weekday morning from 7:00-8:00am. Quincy comes. And usually nobody else. Corey says most of these churches in Korea “are full of first generation Christians which may explain the difference. Maybe we’ve become lazy with our spirituality.”

David Smith, the preaching minister at the Missouri Street Church of Christ in Baytown, Texas, has compiled a list of 18 other preachers and ministers and theologians, mostly CofC, who have written articles about bin Laden’s death. The posts run the gamut of almost anything you can imagine as a Christian reaction to the death of this terrorist. The page with all the links is here. While you’re at it, go ahead and read Smith’s own personal angle here. Scroll down to his second post, Osama bin Laden Talks with God. Wow! How does he keep his job at Missouri Street writing like that?

Finally, my great friend Jim Gardner pointed me to a blog post by Kurt Willems, a former classmate of his at the Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. Kurt explores the things that “grieve the heart of God.” Click here.

This Sunday I am preaching from my favorite Bible verse, John 16:33. These are Jesus’ last words to his disciples before he gives himself up, before he dies on the cross as a sacrifice for every sinner in the history of our planet: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Peace,

Allan

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