Trailblazer

My New Five Fingers

2011-07-25T07:54:00.001-07:00

Many of you have asked about my new Vibram Bikila LS Five Fingers. The Five Fingers are a unique shoe designed to mimic the feel of going barefoot. The Bikila is the running model of the shoe, and the LS means it has laces. I have a very wide foot, so the laces give me a little more room in the shoe. The normal model has an elastic bridge with a velcro closure. I found these to be a little too tight for my foot.

Today, I went for my first run in the Five Fingers. I got the shoes on Friday, and had been anxiously looking forward to my first run in them. Because they imitate the feel of running barefoot, the Five Fingers are supposed to cause a more natural foot strike when running, striking first on the forefoot rather than the heel. This creates less trauma on the body and produces fewer running related injuries. (Okay, that's a greatly abbreviated description of what barefoot running is supposed to do, but that will do for this blog.)

Today, I ran the majority of my run in my old pair of Asics. I will say, I love these shoes. They have been my faithful companion as I have finally gotten my butt back in gear and back into the world of running. They are light and comfortable, and I've pounded a lot of pavement in them. But, I've put way too many miles on them, and it was time for a new pair of running shoes, so I made the switch to the Five Fingers.

I only did the last 7.5 minutes in my Five Fingers today. I am allowing my feet, body, and running motion to gradually adjust to the new feel of running in them. So, here's my initial evaluation. The feel of running nearly barefoot was incredible. My feet were very light without the weight of a large, padded running shoe on them. I run on pavement, and my feet were not at all uncomfortable. I had a good feel of the road beneath my feet, but I did not cringe at the rough surface of the road. Having my toes free allowed them to splay as I ran giving a great sensation of being able to "grip" the road.

Running on my forefeet also gave me more of a feeling of springing as I ran. Even though I had the Five Fingers on at the end of the run, I was able to speed up my pace. I also had increased my running intervals today, but still had energy at the end of my run.

I will say that it takes some time to get used to the forefoot strike. After years of running more on my heel, this takes some adjustment. It's not bad at all, it is just going to take some time to get used to. Also, years ago I had a serious fracture of my right leg. This caused my right leg to turn out slightly more than my left. As a result, I had to concentrate a little more on getting a good forefoot strike with my right foot.

The greatest sensation from the Five Fingers was after I finished my run. Ordinarily, when I finish, my calves are aching, I have some pain in my feet, and my lower back is aching. Today, I had none of that. I got home and feel great. Now, bear in mind that I only did 7 1/2 minutes in the Five Fingers, so my evaluation may change with more time and miles beneath my feet. But so far, I am loving them!

Worship Dude

2011-06-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, we were thick in the process of getting ready to launch The Crossroads. We had raised support, put together a launch team, done community surveys, decided on a name, put together a planting proposal complete with mission, vision, and values, and secured a meeting place. There was just one thing we were missing. We needed a worship pastor.

Most church planting books, coaches, conferences, and gurus are in agreement on this idea: the most important member of the planting team after the planter is a good worship pastor. To modern Americans, music is an important part of their lives, and good music is one of the key draws for them in coming to a new church.

So, we had a problem. We had a pretty good idea of the style of music we wanted to do based on the demographics of the city and the surveys we had already completed. We had some really good, strong pieces of a band already put together. Just no worship pastor. So we prayed and prayed, and I talked to people, lots of people, in search of the right man. We went to hear bands to see if we might come up with someone that way or just to try to talk to some people to see who they might know. I made phone calls. But still, no worship pastor.

Now we were just a few weeks away from our very first preview service, and I was getting pretty nervous. I was meeting with the pastor, missions pastor, and worship pastor of one of our sponsoring churches one day, and they asked me how they could pray for me or if there was any way they could help me. I quickly responded, "We need a worship pastor! Please, do you know of anyone or do you have anyone in your church who might could help us out?" The missions pastor looked at the worship pastor and said, "What about Robby?" To which the worship pastor shot him a dirty look and said, "Well, um, yeah, um, I guess he might be someone." I could tell he was not terribly excited about letting this member of his worship band go. The pastor chimed in, "Yeah! Robby would be great!"

So, somehow, I managed to get contact info for this Robby guy. I called him up, and we got together at Taco Cabana so I could cast the vision of The Crossroads to him and to find out about where he was musically and as a worship leader. Two hours later, we left in agreement that he would help us out through our first three preview services, one a month for the next three months.

Worship Dude, as he came to affectionately be known, met and practiced with the band, and they just connected right off the bat. By the time we had finished our second preview service, Robby told me that he wanted to sign on as our worship pastor if we would have him. I was more than delighted to say yes.

Long story short, over the last three years, Robby has been an incredible worship pastor for The Crossroads, and more importantly, a great friend to me. Each week, he leads our people into God's presence, and then I get to share God's message with them. It is so easy for me to share God's heart with people after Robby has already led them to give honor and glory to God through music.

Well, a few weeks ago, Robby told me that he felt like God was calling him to something new. He wasn't exactly sure what it was that God was calling him to. He just knew that God was calling and that he had to chase the lion that God had placed in front of him. Robby told the congregation this week, and we shared plenty of tears anticipating his leaving.

I don't really have a good way to end this one. I'm just so thankful that God brought Robby and his family into my life and that he was such a vital part of the launch and growth of The Crossroads.

Prayer Please

2011-05-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

I'm sending out a request for prayer to all our friends. Please pray for our house in Sherman to sell. We have been trying to sell our house for the last three years, without much progress. We have made several updates and have lowered the price three times, but still no real offers to move ahead with.

We live our lives each day in Anna. We work there. Our kids go to school there and are involved in numerous after school activities. We lead Journey Groups there. We are actively involved in the community there. Our house in Sherman has really become nothing more than a hotel that we arrive at late most nights only to crash and get up and get going again the next morning.

The driving and the late nights keep us exhausted at all times. We have almost no down time and little time that we get to just chill with each other. Keeping the house meticulously clean and ready to show at all times (which we aren't always able to do) is another source of exhaustion for us. And, the rising cost of gas makes driving back and forth, sometimes more than once in a day, a real budget strain.

So, I'm issuing an all call for prayer, serious, constant, persistent prayer. My mantra right now that rings through my head all day is: "God, please let our house sell." I'd love to have some of you agreeing the same thing for us.

A Home

2011-05-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Several months ago our church started on a new journey. We started to care for the homeless. Oh, I know, all churches care for the homeless, right? Well, yes, I am sure that just about all churches have a concern for the homeless and do some things to express that concern, and I don't for a minute belittle the countless things Christians all over the world do for the homeless. I just mean that our concern for the homeless began to take on a very real expression.

As a church, we have become burdened about putting some legs to our faith and actually taking on some of the things that God says we are supposed to be about as his followers, things like bringing justice to the imprisoned, food for the hungry, clothes for those in need, releasing the chains of oppression, and providing shelter for the homeless. I have to give my wife, LaRissa, most of the credit for being the one God has used to drive me and our church to a greater passion for these things.

Last year we began to learn more about The Samaritan Inn, the only homeless shelter in Collin County, TX, one of the fastest growing counties in the nation. LaRissa attended an orientation at the Inn and discovered several ways we could be involved. One of the first things we did was just spend a day putting in some volunteer hours painting at the Inn.

The project that really inspired us, however, was the Apartment Adoption Program. The Inn recently built the Gateway Apartments, an apartment complex to be used as transitional housing for families who are exiting the Inn and trying to rebuild a life for themselves. Residents of the apartments pay rent on an income based scale and pay for their food and utilities. Adopting an apartment means completely furnishing an apartment for a new resident as they are preparing to move in.

After learning about this program, we felt this was really one of the avenues through which our church could be involved in ministering to the homeless in a tangible way. So, we signed up to adopt an apartment. Mind you, our congregation has about 125 people in it, so this was a real challenge for our people. We began collecting items for the apartment in early March with the goal of having the apartment ready by the end of May.

The Crossroadies did such an incredible job of taking on this apartment. We divided the apartment by room for our Journey Groups to adopt as their mission project, and each of the groups did an amazing job. The parents of one of our members sold their home and donated a couch, love seat, end tables, and a dining table. All of them were beautiful pieces of furniture. Another group equipped the kitchen with utensils, small appliances, towels, silverware, dishes, and cookware, and filled the pantry and freezer in preparation for the family. Amazingly, even though all this stuff came from different groups and people who just heard about what we were doing, the living room furniture and the decorations on the walls and the place settings on the table and the decor in the rooms all matched perfectly.

We found out that the apartment was going to be for a father and his two-year-old little girl who had been living in their car prior to coming to the Inn. So, one of our groups took on the room for the little girl. They got a princess toddler bed, fairy decorations, and a beautiful chest of drawers. Another couple built a toy chest for her, and we filled the toy chest with little girl toys. Another person heard about what we were doing and donated a closet full of beautiful little girl clothes.

Another group took on the dad's room. They got bedroom furniture, bedding, night stands, and awesome, manly decorations for his room. Then, we found out that the dad got a better job in another city and would not be moving in to the apartment. We praised God for his job, but wondered what we would do next.

Another family was waiting in the wings for the apartment. Only problem, this family was a young mother, and her three kids, ages 5, 2, and 1. Oh, and two of them were boys. Our people took on the challenge, however. We completely changed the little girl room to a boy room complete with cars and trucks and Spiderman toys and a crib for the baby. We moved the little girl stuff into the mom's room, and once again were ready for our family. We found out the mom and kids were fleeing an abusive relationship when she came to the Inn.

The greatest moment of all was when this family got the keys to their apartment. Last Wednesday, several Crossroadies gathered in the apartment and waited for this mom to have the keys handed over to her. As the mom unlocked the door and came into the apartment with her kids and her mom, we all cheered for her and this incredible step she was taking for her and her kids. They ran from room to room with tears in their eyes as they saw the incredible home God had provided for them. The kids went for the toys like it was Christmas morning. We got out of the way quickly to allow this family time to settle in to their new home, but before we left, we gathered around them and prayed God's abundant blessings on them.

As we drove away, I remembered that as followers of Jesus, we are strangers here on earth without a home. But Jesus promised when he left that he was going to prepare a home for us. Ever since he left the earth he has been preparing a home for us. And one day, we finally get to see the place that is our real home. I can't wait. And I can't wait for the next time we get to provide another family with an amazing gift ... a home.

"I Will Not Bow" by Breaking Benjamin

2011-03-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Several of you have requested the message from Sunday, so here is the text from it:

In our "God on your iPod" series we are looking at some of the most popular songs from the last couple of years to see if there is a greater meaning in those songs, if there is some kind of God-given longing that is expressed in them, if there is something that will help us to gain greater insight into who God is and what he is about, into who we are and what makes us tick, and into the kind of life that God has created us for. And each week, we will listen to the song for that week, and we will look at some of the lyrics of the song, explore their meaning and see what we can discover from the song.

Music is so important to our lives. Music allows us to connect with other people or to connect with God, to express and experience our feelings, to understand things that are going on in our lives, and to enjoy and enhance life. So, by looking at some of the songs that we enjoy the most or that connect with us the most, we should be able to discover something about life and ourselves and what God wants to do in our lives.

Now, typically, what I do for this series is look at the Billboard Hot 100 for the year to find songs that fit the description for “God on your iPod.” But this year, most of the Hot 100 is populated by hip hop music, and there just really aren’t a lot of songs that express some of the God directed longings that we are looking for. They express some longings, just not the kind we are aiming for in this series. Interestingly though, if you look at the Hot 100 Rock Songs, you will find it filled with music that is exploring some of the deeper questions about life. So, the music that our parents warned us about is not the music that is examining questions like the meaning of my life, how I get through life, what am I focusing on, what are the consequences of my choices, and is there something more to life.

So, that’s where this week’s song comes from. Breaking Benjamin is a four man rock band from Pennsylvania that has actually been around for quite some time. They released their first major label album in 2002. Their most recent album, Dear Agony was released in August 2009. And the biggest hit from that album was “I Will Not Bow.” It peaked at number one on both the Billboard Rock Songs and Alternative Songs; it made it to number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100; and it was number three for the Best of 2010 Rock Songs. So let’s take a look at the video.

Now, there are a lot of possible interpretations of what this song is about, but my take on it is that it is about living in a world that is often dark and difficult and the temptation to give up on life and other people and what you believe in and what really matters. Look at how the song begins: "Now the dark begins to rise / Save your breath it’s far from over / Leave the lost and dead behind / Now’s your chance to run for cover / I don’t want to change the world / I just want to leave it colder / Light the fuse and burn it up / Take the path that leads to nowhere / All is lost again, but I’m not giving in / I will not bow, I will not break / I will shut the world away / I will not fall, I will not fade / I will take your breath away." The recurring line before the chorus is “All is lost again, but I’m not giving in.” So, the song really is about standing up even when life is trying to knock you down. Life is often difficult and it can knock your knees out from under you. So, how do you keep standing when life tries to knock you down? When life is difficult, when it seems dark and cold, when you just want to give up and leave the world behind, how do you stand? How do you not bow or break?

Well, we’re going to take a look at the life of a hero in the Bible to answer that question. About 3,500 years ago, the people of Israel went to Egypt to escape from a famine. And for a while, they were treated wonderfully. They were given food to eat and a place to live, and they were honored by Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And the people of Israel thrived and grew and multiplied in Egypt.

But after a while, a new Pharaoh came to power. And he started looking at how the Israelites were growing in number and becoming prosperous and successful, and he started getting nervous that they were going to take over. So he enslaved them, and he put them to work on massive building projects. But the Israelites continued to multiply. So he gave them more work, treated them more harshly, oppressed them even more. And still they continued to multiply. And the more Pharaoh oppressed them, the more they multiplied.

So, finally, the pharaoh came up with a wicked plan. He would have every baby boy born to the Israelites thrown into the Nile River. Well, there is a mother who has a new baby boy, and she keeps him hidden for as long as she can. But the baby is get-ting old enough that he is starting to make too much noise. She can’t keep him hid-den any longer. So she makes a little boat and places her baby in the boat and puts the boat in the river. Well, about that time, Pharaoh's daughter has come down to the river to bathe. She spots the little boat in the reeds along the edge of the river and discovers the hidden baby. And she decides to adopt the baby as her own and names the baby "Moses." So, Moses grows up in the royal palace, with all the privileges and riches and splendor. One day, when Moses had grown up, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, so he killed the Egyptian. Pharaoh found out about it and was going to have Moses killed, so Moses fled into the desert. Forty years later God sent Moses back to Egypt and in God’s power he delivered the people of Israel from Egypt.

Now, from Moses’ life, I want to show you four characteristics you've got to have if you are going to keep standing when life tries to knock you down. Number one, you have to have convictions. You have to have something you believe in, something that is worth fighting for, a sense of right or wrong. Look at what Hebrews 11:24 says about Moses

“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”

Moses was raised as “the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” He had riches and comfort and privilege. But he chose to give all that up. He chose to associate with his own people. He chose to be known not as the son of Pharaoh, but as a son of God, one of the Hebrew people. You see, before God could work out his plan for the people of Israel, he had to work out his plan in the heart of Moses. Moses had a decision to make about who he was and what he was going to live for.

Convictions must be the foundation of everything you do. What are convictions? They are the fundamental things you believe in life. They are the bedrock foundation of who you are and what you do. They are the things in life you believe in so strongly that you would be willing to give your life for those things. First Corinthians 16:13 says, “Be on guard. Stand true to what you believe. Be courageous. Be strong.” Far too few people in our world believe in anything anymore. There is nothing that they are willing to die for. Is there anything that you believe in strongly enough that you would be willing to die for it? It’s only once you know what you are willing to die for that you know what your life is all about.

To not bow or break when life gets tough, you've got to have convictions, a point where you say, “This far and no farther.” A place where you will draw a line in the sand and take your stand. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.”

The key to convictions, though, is having the right ones. What are the things you are willing to die for? Some people have convictions about things that don’t matter or that are just plain wrong. The right ones are convictions about right and wrong, truth and justice, convictions about looking out for other people. But the most important conviction for the kind of person God uses to make a difference in the world is conviction about the good news. A conviction that I am a follower of Jesus Christ, that life and hope and peace are found in him, that Jesus died on a cross and rose from the dead so that I could have life, and that some day he’s coming back again. What do you believe in? What would you be willing to die for? A hero has convictions.

Then, number two, to stand when life is trying to knock you down, you have to have priorities. If convictions relate to what you are willing to die for, then priorities are about what you are willing to live for. Convictions are about beliefs. Priorities are about actions. What are the things that matter most to you? What are the things that you will give your time and energy to?

Priority just has to do with asking the question, “What is really important?” Take a look at how Moses answered that question. “He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.” (Hebrews 11:25-26) Rather than and greater value than. Those are value decisions. Those are decisions about priorities. Moses prioritized God over gold, people over pleasure, suffering over safety, character over comfort. Your priorities often come down to the choices you make. It says, Moses chose to be mistreated. Choices are always a reflection of your priorities. Your choices show what is really important in your life.

If you want to know what the priorities are in your life, just look at the choices you make. In fact, I can tell you a very easy way to determine what your priorities are in life. Look at how you spend your time and how you spend your money. Let me look at your calendar and your checkbook, and I can tell you what the priorities are in your life.

Moses made a choice. His choice involved turning away from the pleasures of sin for a short time. Now, there’s a lot in those few words. He turned away from power, prestige, possessions, and pleasure. Moses was in the household of Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler on earth and had access to the riches of Egypt. And he gave it all up. That’s priorities.

Now, let me show you how you determine your priorities. You do it the same way Moses did, you live with eternity in view. He was looking ahead to his reward. Moses made decisions on the basis of eternity, not the circumstances of the present. Let me give you a really good way to do that. Second Peter 3:10-11 says, “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?” This whole world is going to disappear one day. Everything around you is going to be gone. Now, in light of that, how should you live? In any situation, just ask yourself the question, what is this going to matter a thousand years from now. Most of the stuff we give ourselves to won’t even matter ten years from now.

What is it that really matters in life? Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” (Matthew 6:32-33) What are you doing that gives priority to building the kingdom of God? What are you doing that gives priority to following Jesus Christ? What are you doing that is going to matter in light of eternity?

You have to have convictions. You have to have priorities. Then, third, to stand when life is trying to knock you down, you have to have courage. The author of Hebrews says about Moses, “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger…” Now, there’s something really interesting here. The book of Exodus in the Old Testament that tells Moses’ story very clearly says that when Moses killed the Egyptian, he was afraid. Yet here, it says Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. How do you reconcile the two? Well, the first one, the one written by Moses, was describing Moses’ feelings. The second one describes Moses’ actions. Now, don’t miss this, because this teaches us a vitally important lesson about being a hero. Courage is not the absence of fear. In fact, courage is never proved in the absence of fear. Real courage can only be demonstrated in the face of the worst of fears.

Heroes are not people who are not afraid. Heroes are people who, even though they are afraid, they stand firm, they move forward, they have faith in God. You see, the opposite of fear is not the absence of fear. The opposite of fear is faith, believing that God can handle whatever our fears are. Look at 2 Timothy 1:7: “God didn’t give us a cowardly spirit but a spirit of power, love, and good judgment.” Power, love, and good judgment. Power – fear will keep you from attempting great things for God. Fear will keep you from accomplishing incredible tasks. Fear will always tell you you can’t do it. But with courage and faith in God, you have incredible power to do amazing things and make a difference in the world. Love – fear will keep you from building relationships with other people for fear of getting hurt. Fear will make you keep other people at a distance. But with courage and faith in God, you can build relationships with other people and together impact the world. Good judgment – fear will cause you to make bad decisions. When you make a decision based on fear, you often make the wrong decision. It takes courage to make the right choice, even when you are afraid.

How do you face your fears, how do you come up against the things that scare you the most in life, and still stand firm? I love Psalm 46:1-2: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. There-fore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” You have faith in God and what he is able to do.

You have to have convictions. You have to have priorities. You have to have courage. And, finally, to stand when life tries to knock you down, you have to have perseverance. What is perseverance? It’s stick-to-it-tiveness. It’s the ability to hang in there, to stand your ground, to not give up. Hebrews 11:27 says Moses "persevered because he saw him who is invisible." You see, sometimes you just have to be the last person standing. Sometimes you just have to keep on going after everybody else has given up. Even when life throws it’s hardest punches at you, even when you are getting your knees knocked out from under you, you keep getting up, you keep moving forward. You keep trusting in God.

Let me tell you a little life secret. Life is hard. Life is full of difficult times. And you’ve only got one of two choices. You either give up and give in, or you hang in there and you just keep moving forward. You persevere. The sad truth is that most people don’t keep going. Most people give up. People give up on their dreams and hopes. People give up on their jobs. People give up on their children, their marri-ages, their friends. People give up on making a difference in the world. And the sad part is that when you give up, you miss out on God’s blessings for your life. Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Most people miss the harvest, they miss the blessing, because they give up too soon. Our family loves to hike, and there's a great principle that I have learned from hiking: “The most beautiful places on earth, most people never see because the road to get there is too tough.”

What are you tempted to give up on right now in life? Your marriage, a friendship, a frustration at work, a relationship with a friend, a person who you have been inviting to church, a kid in your classroom that you’ve been trying to get through to, overcoming a sin in your life, giving in to temptation. Don’t give up, because God’s greatest blessings come at the end of the toughest roads.

Now, how do you do that? How do you keep going in the tough times. You do it the same way Moses did. It says he saw him who is invisible or even better he saw him who can’t be seen. That’s an oxymoron, but it’s a really important one. During the toughest times of your life, those are going to be the times that God is the most difficult to see, but it is during those times that it is vitally important that you keep your eyes on God. How did Moses keep going in tough times, difficult times, times of criticism and discouragement, times when his life was in danger? He kept on looking for the invisible hand of God. That’s what the first of Hebrews 11 says faith is. It is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The Bible says that in all things God works together for good, so you keep looking for what God is doing even when you don’t understand, even when life is knocking you down.

Look at Ephesians 6:14: “Use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil, so that after the battle you will still be standing firm.” That’s the picture of a hero. The battle has come and the enemy has thrown everything he has at the hero. And the hero has been wounded, and the hero is weary, and the hero has watched other people fall around him. But the hero is still standing. Don’t give up!

Free Will?

2011-03-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

My daughters have a set of Russian nesting dolls that my mom got them a few months ago. If you don't know what I am talking about, they are little wooden dolls shaped roughly like bowling pins, and the dolls nest one inside another, getting progressively smaller.

Sunday morning, on the way to church, Katie had brought these along for the ride just to occupy her time. She and Abby were playing with the dolls, but Katie would not allow Abby to play with the smallest one for fear that she would lose it. Instead, she left it nested inside of a couple of others. Abby got very upset about this and started wailing and having a horrible fit. Never mind that she could play with any of the other dolls. She wanted the one doll that she could not play with.

LaRissa pointed out that Abby was demonstrating what has so long been a part of human nature: we want the very thing that we cannot have. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of the fruit of any tree in the Garden of Eden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So, what do they do? They eat of the one tree they were told they could not eat. The one tree that was off limits is the one tree to which they are drawn.

Ever since, our sinful human nature tends to draw us to the very things that we cannot have. We do not like to be told "No," and when we are told "No," it tends to increase our desire for the thing we cannot have. Paul points this out in Romans 7. We desire to do good, but we wind up doing the very evil thing that we do not want to do. In addition, the commands of God often give rise in us a desire to do the very thing that God has prohibited. Paul uses the example of covetousness. God's command not to covet gives birth in Paul covetousness of every kind.

The real issue is our sinful nature, our human will. Our decisions, our choices, our actions are constantly impacted by the sinful nature that is within each of us. Our wills are dictated by our nature which is in bondage to sin.

So, do we really have free wills? Well, it depends. We absolutely have freedom of the will. Freedom of the will simply means that we are free to do what we will. Whatever our wills dictate, we are free to follow those impulses. Now, even within this understanding of the human will, there are limits on our freedom. Sometimes my freedom is limited by my own abilities. I may have the will to leap off a five story building and fly like a bird, but gravity, aerodynamics, and my own body structure will have something vastly different to say. Sometimes my freedom is limited by others. I may have the will to stay up till 2 am, but my wife may veto that. Sometimes my freedom is limited by society. I may want to drive 120 mph, but the law, police officers, and other traffic will be a serious limiting factor on my will. I may have the will to play with the smallest Russian doll, but my big sister may have something different to say.

In general, however, we are free to do what we will, we have freedom of the will. Our problem, however, is not really freedom of the will. It is freedom from the will, which we do not have. Freedom from the will is the freedom to do other than what our will dictates. Now, you may say, "I am fully capable of doing other than what I want to do." But that is not the same as doing other than what you will to do. Your actions and decisions are always a function of your will. You always do what you will to do. Sometimes you will to do what you don't want to do, but you will it nonetheless.

Another way of putting it is what Jonathan Edwards said. I am free to do what I will, but I am not free to will what I will. My will is a function of my nature, and my will always dictates what I do. And therein lies our great problem. I am not free from my will. I am in bondage to my will. My will drives me to choices that are destructive, harmful, sinful, and enslaving. Although I am free to do what I will, I cannot change the nature that drives my will.

The only way for me to truly be free is for someone outside of myself to set me free. And that is what Christ has done. Now, even then, my will is not free, because I give myself as a slave to Jesus Christ. But once Christ is in control, I am only then truly free to live the life that God has called me to. Only once I have made Jesus the ruler of my life am I really free.

We Know?

2011-02-23T15:44:00.000-08:00

For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (TNIV)

As Christians, we love this verse. We quote it often and use it as a source of comfort in troubling times. It seems that we take particular assurance from it during times of great tragedy.

But do we really know this truth? Do we really know that in all things, God works for our good? It seems that often we do not really believe it. When we fret about the potential loss of a job, when our medical bills stack up, when we are discouraged that our plans for life are not turning out the way we had hoped, do we really know that God is working all things for our good?

I am often guilty of the sin of worry. I see trouble or difficulty looming on the horizon and I think of all the potential disasters that are going to happen. As a result. I get upset, stressed, and grumpy. Just ask my wife! And all of that shows that in my heart I am not really grasping the truth of this verse. If it really is true that in all things God really is working everything for my good and his glory according to his plan, then worry should never enter my mind.

I am often like the disciples in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus asleep in the boat. They feared for their lives, but if they really understood that the master of the sea was in the boat with them, they would have had nothing to fear. Instead, they wake him with the question, "Don't you care that we are about to die?" They doubted instead of trusting. And that is what happens when I forget this verse.

Father, help me to trust in your work in my life no matter what is happening.

Awesome Day

2011-02-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day. I got to preach about worship this morning, one of my favorite topics.

This afternoon we had our "Growing God's People" Class. I had a really good time with this group. Great interactions, and I love teaching people some practical things they can do to grow spiritually.

Now, I'm totally beat and ready to hit the sack...

Snowpocalypse 2

2011-02-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

More snow today! It doesn't look like it is going to be quite as bad as predicted, but still it's way more of the white stuff than we are used to in North Texas.

It makes me thankful for a number of things. I am thankful for a warm house to live in a a big fire going in the fireplace. I am thankful for plenty of food to eat. I am thankful for a beautiful wife and four incredible children to get to spend the day with. I am thankful for forgiveness of sin. Though my sins were like scarlet stains, God has made them as white as snow. I'm thankful that God is sovereign. Every year, springtime and harvest, summer and winter come at his faithful command.

I'm ready for a warm spring, but I'll enjoy the snow while it is here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-02-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

This post was supposed to go out last week, but with the first round of Snowpocalypse, I didn't get to it till now:

January 30 is my birthday! Ok, it's not my physical birthday. I was actually born on April 13, 1973. January 30, 1983, is my spiritual birthday. It is the day I gave my life to Christ.

I grew up in a tiny town (population 144) in southwest Arkansas, in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, called Center Point. Every Sunday morning, our family got up and went to the Center Point Missionary Baptist Church at a little white frame church building that was about a hundred years old. My dad was a deacon and Sunday School teacher, and my mom was the “song leader.” We didn't miss a Sunday!

In the early weeks of 1983, I began to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. That's church talk for, I began to understand that I was a sinner and that my sin had caused some problems between me and God. Okay, at nine years old, I had never killed anyone, done or dealt drugs, stolen much more than a pencil or some candy from my brother, or seriously betrayed any of my friends.

In general, I was a good little kid. But I came to realize that I was still a sinner. I had disobeyed my parents, lied to my parents, gotten in lots of fights with my little brother, tried out a few bad words, cheated on a test at school, and was sometimes mean to my friends. Now, those may not seem like really big things to you, but what I really started to understand was that those things were serious to God and that things weren't right between me and him.

The other thing the Holy Spirit made really clear to me was that my only hope was in Jesus, specifically that Jesus had died on the cross for me, to pay for my sins so I could be forgiven, and that Jesus rose from the dead. I didn't exactly get all that meant, but I knew that if Jesus came back from the dead, then my best shot at getting right with God and going to heaven was in him.

So, all of that came to a head on January 30, 1983. The pastor offered a traditional altar call, an invitation to come to the front of the church at the end of the service, if you wanted to put your trust in Jesus. I was way to scared and shy at the time to do that (which may explain why I rarely do them today). After the service I bolted for the door and hid out in the car until my mom came. Then, I couldn't hold it in any longer. In a rush of tears, I told Mom that I didn't want to die and go to hell, but that I wanted to live forever with Jesus. She took me back into the church building, and in a little Sunday School classroom at the back of the church, our pastor, Brother Jerry, shared with me how to give my life to Jesus. I bowed my head and prayed a nine-year-old prayer to put my trust in Jesus. It was the greatest day of my life, and one I will never forget.

Yesterday, I got to celebrate twenty-eight years as a follower of Jesus. I got to preach that same message about Jesus to our congregation. Then yesterday afternoon, we baptized five people going public with their commitment to follow Jesus. Happy birthday to me!

Mexico 2010

2010-07-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

This past week I went on a mission trip with twenty other people from The Crossroads and a couple of other churches. This was somewhere in the neighborhood of my 13th or 14th Mexico Mission Trip, but this was honestly the best one yet.

I first began traveling to Mexico several years ago as I took trips to Ciudad Juarez, a city directly across the border from El Paso, TX, in the Chihuahuan desert. That initial experience really developed in me a passion for international missions and for connecting others in mission. Nothing I have ever experienced as a pastor causes greater growth in people's lives than participating in an international mission trip. As a result, missions is a central piece in the vision of The Crossroads. We believe that the church has a responsibility to the ends of the earth, not just paid missionaries, and that every Christian needs to be engaged on mission in some capacity. Our Mexico trips are the first piece of that puzzle. They enable people to get a first exposure to international missions and are a training ground for future mission endeavors.

A couple of years ago, the intense violence resulting from warring drug cartels seeking to gain control of Juarez forced us to seek another mission opportunity. We connected with the First Baptist Church of Brownsville, TX, and began doing some mission work outside of Matamoros in a small fishing village called Las Higuerillas.

This year, however, we felt it was time to go further into the interior of Mexico. This area is known as the Heart of Darkness and is home to a number of unreached people groups. So, we traveled to Tula, Tamaulipas, MX, working with Pastor Nemias Ruiz Tadeo, who serves as a missionary/church planting pastor. We had quite a bit of difficulty getting into Mexico (the Mexican authorities didn't like the wording on some of our paperwork), so we were delayed an entire day getting to Mexico.

During our week there, Pastor Ruiz took us to the village of San Francisco, a small community in the Sierra Madre. It is only 36 miles from Tula, but it is so remote and the roads are so difficult that it took us nearly two hours each day to get there. The remoteness of the village only made it that much more exciting for our group. In fact, we intentionally chose the village because of its remoteness. Our people are so pumped about taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

San Francisco is the southernmost village in Tula province in Tamaulipas. It is literally at the end of the road, and it is the last village in the Sierra Madre. It is located at the base of a mountain that is roughly 11,000 ft. high. It is in tropical forests, and there is a mountain river that runs just next to the village. It is honestly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. The people of the village earn a meager existence raising cattle, corn, and sugar cane in the rich, but rocky and steep, mountain soil.

Our first day, we were late getting to the village because we had lots to do before we headed out. The pastor of the tiny mission in the village was so concerned that he drove halfway back down the mountain to come find us. When we arrived, we did an abbreviated Vacation Bible School and held evangelistic services. Five people gave their lives to Christ. As I shared with the people some of the difficulties we had getting their and our determination to come, they raised a loud cheer, certainly one of the better receptions we have ever had.

I found out the next day why they were so excited. After lunch I did some discipleship with the church/village leaders. Afterward, with tears rolling down their faces, they thanked me over and over for coming to their village. They shared that they had been praying and praying for someone to come help them spread the gospel to their village and to neighboring villages. Come to find out, we were the first Americans who had ever been to their village. One of the men, completely broken, expressed his gratitude for our coming, and how his son who recently was lost, had been found. In gratitude, he said he was going to kill a calf and hold a barbecue in our honor. A cheer went up from the other men. I had to go outside and weep because I was so humbled by the beauty of it all.

There's lots more I could share, like kids whose lives were transformed, more people who gave their lives to Christ, getting to do some swimming and cliff diving in a mountain river, helping the men with slaughtering and butchering the calf, and the incredible beauty of our women serving the women who cooked for us all week by washing their feet (another weeping moment). However, I'll just close by saying that God has given us an incredible opportunity with this village. We are able to get in on the beginning point of doing missions here, and hope to continue our relationship with these people. Please pray with me for our continuing relationship and for the beautiful people of San Francisco.

An Ethic of Social Media - Part 4

2010-06-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I gave my analogy for the world of social media, Twitter in particular. I said that Twitter is like using a megaphone to speak in a very large, very crowded room. This understanding of the nature of Twitter should then inform the ethic that guides our use of Twitter. Last time, I presented the "don't's" that come from this understanding of Twitter. Now, I'll give you a few "do's."

#1 - Do connect with other people in the room. One of the great things about this big room with lots of people in it is that it enables you to develop relationships with lots of people. Use Twitter to connect to people you can learn from, people who can learn from you, people you would like to know better, people in your community, people in the same field of work as you, people engaging in ministries you have a heart for. There are limitless possibilities of people with whom you can connect on Twitter. Twitter should not merely be a place for you to get stuff off your chest. The real value of it is the connections it enables. Now, this doesn't mean you can't be selective. I am. I don't follow everyone that follows me, and I'm not constantly adding new people just to try to get my own follow numbers up. I choose who I want to follow based on the value I think will develop from the relationship.

#2 - Do be real on Twitter. People connect with you on Twitter because they want to get to know you, the real you. Don't just shoot off stuff that sounds like it came from a Hallmark card or a daily devotional. Give people a glimpse into your world, what your daily life is like, what you wrestle with, what joys you have. Twitter is an easy world to wear a mask in, and there are a lot of people who do, but you will get more out of the experience if you take the risk to let others know you for who you are.

#3 - Do use Twitter as a means of encouraging, supporting, and praying for other people. If you will watch Twitter with eyes open to the opportunities to minister to other people, there are a lot of them out there. People often post stuff that you can simply reply to with a "Praying for you." And if you post that, pray right then for them. Don't just say it; do it. Twitter also is an incredible network for discovering a need and responding to that need. If you see someone needs help, and you know a way that you and your network of friends can help, then do it.

#4 - Do use the full functionality of Twitter: @replies, DMs, retweets, Twitter lists. This one is pretty nuts and bolts. Take some time to actually learn how to make the most of Twitter. It will help you avoid some of the "don't's" if you just know how to @reply to a post someone has put up, or to DM someone instead of sending it out for all to read. Retweets enable you to get word out to your network about something you read that you thought was valuable for them to read also. And, Twitter lists or a Twitter client that categorizes tweets for you will help you make your way around the crowded room without just getting a bunch of noise.

#5 - Do tweet regularly. Now, I know that seems in contradiction with one of the "don't's", but there needs to be a balance. You don't need to tweet so much that people get tired of you and turn you off, but you also don't want to tweet so little that people forget you are out there. If you are in a large, crowded room, and all you do is stay on the edge of the room, never talking to anyone, never interacting with anyone, it won't be long before others don't even notice you anymore. Really, about all it takes to do that is one or two tweets a day.

#6 - Do take a break from time to time. Take a Twitter Sabbath every once in a while. Have a day where you are completely unplugged, where you go dark for a while. Sometimes, you need to get out of the room, and invest in relationships in the real world.

#7 - Do engage in real world relationships. It's important to remember that this very large, very crowded room is an imaginary room. As awesome as the world of social media is and as many relationships as it facilitates, we need real relationships with real world people. We need people with flesh and blood and tears and hugs and laughs. We need people with whom we can have more extensive conversations than 140 characters at a whack. We need people who can pick us up when we fall or kick our butts when we are wandering in dark places. Engage in Twitter, but also engage in life.

So, that's my stab at an ethic of social media. I'm sure there are other principles that could be added, but those are the governing principles that I use. Some of them I am more successful at than others, and some of them I am committed to giving more effort to. I hope it helps you. I also hope that you will spend some time thinking through the ethical implications of the social media world for yourself and develop some principles for yourself.

Sunday Rewind

2010-06-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

We had another awesome day at The Crossroads. We are continuing our series "FAMILY" about how to have the family life that God designed you for. This week and the next two weeks are all about children. Children are such a vital part of family life. The message focused on the importance of children, in particular, making sure we give our children the most important thing in life, a relationship with Jesus Christ. I really loved the opportunity to encourage some of our new Christians that they can talk to their kids about Jesus.

I am excited about what is going to happen next week. Our entire service is going to be spent in our Kids' Cove Children's Area. Adults will get a taste of what our children experience each week and how they worship God. Jesus sat a child in front of his disciples and said, "Do you want to know what it takes to enter the kingdom of heaven? Then just watch this kid." I think we need to spend more time experiencing God through the beautiful eyes of a child. Our own faith would probably be encouraged and grow stronger if we could see life through a child's eyes more often.

We had an awesome worship time this week. The band just seems to be getting better each week. The addition of an electric guitar just really allows us to do more of the alternative feel that is our target style. It also allows our acoustic guitarist to expand and play bass occasionally. I am excited about how God is growing the band. I also had a great praise this week. My voice is back. For those of you who don't know, I have a cyst on my vocal cords that causes me to sound like a chain smoker from time to time. I have really been struggling with it for the last two to three months. But two weeks ago, I found myself singing along to the radio with no pain and no difficulty. For the last two weeks, I have been able to preach without pain or strain. So, I am super excited and prayerful that this is a permanent, or at least long term healing.

Last week we had one of our highest attendances yet, but this week we were really down. A lot of people are away on family vacations, and that really has an impact on attendance. But, last year, we had one of our biggest growth times during the summer months, so I am looking forward to that happening again this year.

Summer is a really busy time for us, and we are gearing up for a lot of stuff right now. This Saturday, we will have a car wash to raise money for our Mexico mission trip. The following Saturday is the first of four Family Movie Nights that we sponsor during the summer. In July, we go to Mexico. So, please be in prayer for all the things coming up.

An Ethic of Social Media - Part 3

2010-06-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

My analogy for understanding social media and Twitter in particular is this: Twitter is speaking into a megaphone in a very large, very crowded room. Twitter now has over 100 million users (and Facebook has even more)! If your user profile is open, all of those people have access to anything you post as a tweet or an @reply. Even if your profile is locked, all of your friends have access to everything you tweet. So, to carry through with the analogy, even if you have your profile locked, you are just in a locked room in the very crowded building, and any of your friends are free to leave the room and pass along to others what you have tweeted.

So, that analogy has several implications for our ethic of social media. It informs what we should or shouldn't post, how we should relate to others, and the attitudes we should display on Twitter. So, here are a few ethical principles I have developed based on this analogy of Twitter. I'll give you the "don't's" today, then the "do's" on another day.

#1 - Don't tweet anything you wouldn't want your mother (or father, brother, sister, spouse, fiance, children, best friend, etc.) to hear. Once you tweet something, you have absolutely no control over what happens to it after that in this incredibly crowded room. There's a good chance that your mother is in the room. Even if not, there are plenty of people in the room who may know your mother and pass along to her something you posted on Twitter. We must remember that Twitter is not an isolated conversation. There are millions of people who can pick up on our tweets and pass them along. Your tweet may not make it to your mother, but it could be picked up by someone else you care about and negatively impact their view of you. So, think about the things you say on Twitter. Are you okay with everyone in your life seeing the language you use? the subjects you tweet about? the way you respond to others?

#2 - Don't expect others to respond to everything you tweet. Twitter is a great way of increasing our sense of narcissism. Because there are tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people following us, we think that everyone cares about everything we tweet and have some obligation to respond to our tweets. We get an inflated sense of ourselves and how others should view us. But, we have to remember, that a tweet comes with no strings attached. You should tweet simply because you want to express yourself, but no one in this crowded room has an obligation to respond to what you tweet.

Remember, it is a very crowded room, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of conversations going on every day even in the limited circle of people you follow. I follow about three hundred people on Twitter (a fairly small number for a lot of pastors, but I am kind of selective), and I have about 350 followers. I don't have the time or capacity to keep up with everything everyone says on Twitter in a given day. So, I have an application that allows me to filter and categorize my tweeps so that I don't get just a lot of noise. There are certain people that I "pay more attention to." There are people that I often respond to, and people that I never respond to. Beyond that, I may walk out of the room for several hours. When I come back into the room, I may not catch up on all the conversations that have taken place in the time since I left the room. So, I may not respond to something you posted. It doesn't mean I don't care. It just means that I wasn't in the room when you used the megaphone. If you really care about making sure someone gets the word, send them a DM or actually text them. But don't get upset at people for not responding to your generic tweet.

#3 - Don't be passive aggressive on Twitter. What I mean by that is, don't use Twitter as a means to attack someone, complain about someone, be ugly about someone. Even if you don't mention the person by name, there's a really good chance that some/many/or all of your followers have a really good idea who you are talking about. In this crowded room, there are others who are aware of the situation, and you may be doing damage to your relationship with them, to their understanding of your character, and to your reputation. Additionally, a lot of people use Twitter to "secretly" attack someone who is actually following them on Twitter. That's just not cool. If you have a problem with someone, don't get on the megaphone to complain about them. Talk to them, but don't air it out for all of us to hear, because, quite frankly, we don't want to hear it.

#4 - Don't have arguments on Twitter. This one is closely connected to the former one and is often a result of it. Nobody in a big crowded room wants to hear you fighting back and forth with someone else on a megaphone. If you've got an issue that you are going to fight about, move the conversation to DMs, text messages, or actual real world conversations. Don't air it on the Twittersphere for all to hear. Even if someone else fires a shot at you, be the bigger person and move the conversation to an avenue where you can actually resolve the issue. Again, we don't want to hear it, and it doesn't build other people up. Each of these last two actually do considerable damage to the relationship with the other person and to other people's opinion of you. When you move an argument, disagreement, relationship issue to Twitter, you have opened it up for all the world to see. You have magnified the intensity of the issue by the factor of however many people are listening because you have exposed the issue to hundreds or thousands of people. Here's the general rule of thumb for life: Praise publicly, criticize privately. People always respond better to that simple standard. Besides, Twitter is one of the worst avenues in the world for having an argument. How in the world can you really get to the heart of an issue when you have 140 characters or less? By having an argument on Twitter, you are demonstrating that you don't really care about finding any resolution to this issue. You just want to fire shots at the other person. And that is not a Christlike way to handle problems.

#5 - Don't have lengthy Twitter conversations. My rule of thumb is, if you are having a conversation that just involves you and another person, after about three @replies, it's time to move the conversation to DMs or text messages. Remember, it is a crowded room, and your conversations should be beneficial or engaging to the other people in the room. If you are just having an A-B conversation, and nobody else is engaged in it, move the conversation. If the conversation engages more than one other person, it's probably okay to take it to about 5 @replies. And if there are a large number of people engaging, it's okay to keep it going. If your conversation is of a personal nature (I can't believe so and so did such and such!) or the mundane (Can you pick up a gallon of milk on the way home?), keep it off Twitter.

#6 - Don't be a whiner. It's okay to very occasionally post about something that frustrates you, an issue that you want to champion, things that bug you or get on your nerves. Twitter is a great avenue to do that and see if other people experience the same things and maybe even get some answers for how to deal with it. But, don't be a constant complainer. The other people in the room will get tired of it quickly.

#7 - Don't overtweet. Okay, this one is just a little bit of a pet peeve of mind, but maybe the rest of you are okay with it. In this big, crowded room, if you are constantly on the megaphone, it get's old. Tweet stuff that has some interest, impact, or bearing on your followers. It's okay to tweet where you are eating occasionally or when you are going to the store or that you are going to bed. Just don't do it all the time. If all you are tweeting to me is a running agenda, your schedule for the day, or your current location, I don't care. I guess this is kind of an arbitrary number, but if you are sending out more than 5-7 tweets an hour (not including @replies) you may be guilty of overtweeting.

Okay, well, I guess there are probably some other principles you could come up with based on this analogy, and if you do, please feel free to share them. But for now, that's what I've got. I'll share my "do's" for Twitter in the next post.

The Divine Family

2010-06-06T15:26:00.001-07:00

Well, as promised, here is the manuscript from today's message. You'll have to look up the Scripture passages for yourself. Come on, you can do that much!

Our relationships with each other in our families impact our sense of well-being, our happiness, our self-esteem, our ability to be good parents, our performance at work. For our children, family relationships affect choices about friends, peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, smoking, sexual behavior, self-esteem, study habits, grade point average. Family is the first relationships any of us have. Our family relationships are the longest lasting relationships most of us will ever have.

So, we are going to take some time to look at how to have a healthy family life. We’re going to look at some biblical principles about families, about marriage and husbands and wives, about parenting, about disciplining your children and teaching godly principles to your children, about how to prepare for family.

If we are honest, families aren’t easy. Relationships in families are difficult. So, we are going to look for biblical answers for how to have the kind of family God wants us to have. But I also want to encourage you, if you look through the pages off the Bible, you are hard-pressed to find a good example of family life. In fact, most of the examples of family in the Bible are what we would call dysfunctional families. King David was a man after God’s own heart, yet his family was riddled with adultery, murder, incest, incredible sibling rivalry, rebellious sons, and all kinds of problems. So, if you have some struggles in your family, just know that you are not alone, that some of the greatest people of faith in the Bible had family problems also. So, we’re going to look at some biblical principles for how to have a healthy family. and I promise you we are going to have fun and some surprises along the way.

Well, today, in our understanding of family, we are going to begin with God. We’re going to develop a theology of the family. Before we look at the how to’s and principles for marriage and parenting and dating and some of those family issues, we are going to start with what we can learn about family from God. You see, God created the family. The very first human institution God created on earth was the family.
The very existence of family derives from God. It’s not just that God created family. Our very understanding of what family is all about comes from God. Eph. 3:14-15. God, the Father, is the prototype for all fatherhood and as a result for all families. Our concept of father begins with God, not man, and so every human family exists because of God. Without God, there is no family.

Think about this, the most prominent image that the Bible gives us of the very nature of God is a family relationship, Father and Son. Family is so vitally important that God has revealed himself to us in the first two persons of the Trinity as family. Jesus began his public ministry by being baptized, and after his baptism, as he is about to take on the mission for which he came to earth, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends on Jesus, and the voice of God comes from heaven, and look what he says: Mt. 3:17. God himself, in some incredible, mysterious way, reveals himself to us as family. The relationship between God and Jesus is the relationship of Father and Son. If we are to understand family, we have got to gain some understanding into why God has made himself known in this way and what it means to us.

The fact that God has revealed himself as family means that family is an experience and expression of the divine. Let me say that again, and I want you to be sure to write that down and don’t miss it. Family is an experience and expression of the divine. Through family we experience and express something of who God is.

It is an experience of the divine. In family, we are supposed to experience something of who God is. In family, we are supposed to experience relationships with other people and love and forgiveness and acceptance and mercy and compassion and tenderness and discipline and instruction. We experience the character of God in family. There is supposed to be something unique about family. If you come from a halfway healthy family, you know that you have experienced emotions and closeness and love unlike anything you have experienced anywhere else. That’s the God element in family. One of the primary means that God shows his favor to us is through family. In family, we experience provision, shelter, support, encouragement. God designed the family as the first place for us to experience him.

But, let’s be honest, we experience Satan at work in our families also. There’s a taste of heaven and a taste of hell in families. You see, Satan understands that the family is a critical point for us to experience God, so he wants to mess that up as much as he can. In fact, your family is one of two primary areas where Satan is going to try to attack you. He’s going to attack your mind, what you think, what you feel about yourself and life. And, then, he’s going to attack you through your family. He’s going to try to wreak havoc in your home, because he knows that God has designed the family as a place for you to experience the divine.

It’s an experience of the divine. It’s also an expression of the divine. In family, we are supposed to experience something of who God is. We are also supposed to express something of who God is. All those things I said you experience in family, you are also supposed to express those to other people in your family. Love, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, mercy. Family is the first place you have to live out your commitment to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If you don’t live it at home, it’s not real. You express who God is in your family, but also your family is an expression to those outside of it of who God is. People who aren’t followers of Christ should be able to look at your family and see something of Jesus Christ in the way you relate to each other and the way you respond to people outside your family.

So, because God has revealed himself to us in a family relationship, family is an experience and expression of the divine. So, today, we are going to look at a few statements by Jesus from the gospels about the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son to understand something of the family relationship of God. What do we learn about family by looking at God?

So, let’s take a look at a few things Jesus says. Jn. 3:35; Jn. 5:20. The Father loves the Son. God’s character, God’s nature, is love. God is the most loving being in existence. The Bible says we are capable of love because God first loved us. Our understanding of what love even is comes from the fact that God created us in love and so we know love because he designed us to love. But the greatest expression of God’s love is not God’s love toward his creation or toward human beings. It is his love for himself.

The triune God, three in one, has forever existed from all eternity in a perfect love relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you asked the question, “Who does God love most in all the universe?” the answer would be, “Himself.” Now, this is not a selfish kind of love on God’s part. It’s just that God is the most loving and most lovable and glorious being in all the universe, so for God to love anything more than himself and his glory is for God to be guilty of idolatry.

Think about it this way, what kind of universe would we have gotten if we had a God who was three in one, but the three didn’t love each other. I’ll tell you what we would have, Greco-Roman gods who constantly squabble with each other and human beings get caught in the crossfire.

God’s love within the Trinity forms the basis of his love for us. You see, God sent the Son to die on the cross to show his love for us and so that we might love the Son and through loving the Son, we might also love the Father. Why did God send the Holy Spirit, to point us to the Son and create in us love for the Son so that we might love the Father, and then in turn that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would show their love to us. God’s purpose was that through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he would bring greater love, honor, glory, and praise to himself. Jesus said, “Whoever keeps my commands is the one who loves me, and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I in turn will love him and show myself to him.” Jesus told his disciples, “The Father loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.” God’s love for us comes first from the fact that there is a perfect, unchanging, eternal love relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So, here’s the point, and I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but your love for each other as a family will form the foundation of your love for others, for all other relationships that you will form in life. It is vitally important that you show love for each other. Jn. 13:35.

So, the first thing Jesus teaches us about the relationship between Father and Son is overwhelming love. There has forever been perfect love between Father and Son. And that kind of love is the foundation for family life.

Now, look at the next thing Jesus says about his relationship with the Father. Mt. 11:27; Jn. 10:15. Father and Son know each other perfectly. The Son knows the mind of the Father. The Father knows the mind of the Son. They exist in a perfectly absolute open relationship. There are no secrets, nothing hidden, no thoughts that they don’t share. They are in perfect harmony with one another. There is never a point at which they are in contention with each other. There is never any argument or debate. So, everything Jesus said was a reflection of the mind of the Father.

But it is more than just knowing facts. In the Bible, to know someone means far more than just knowing about them. It is used to refer to the most intimate of connections. So, when Jesus says the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father, he means they have the closest of connections to each other. So, the second thing Jesus teaches us about Father and Son is that they have true knowledge of each other.

And Father and Son have a common purpose. Jn. 5:19. It is natural for a son to want to please his father, to do the things his father wants him to do. So, part of the reason God chose to reveal himself as Father and Son is so that we understand that the Son is all about doing the will of His Father. The ultimate expression of that was in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus the Son says to God the Father, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” The human side of Jesus looks at the agony of the cross and says, “I’d rather not have to experience that, but Dad, I know why I’m here and I know what we’re about and I understand my mission, so I want to do what you want.” Jn. 10:18. Jesus willingly laid down his life on the cross because he understood that that was what he had come for. Jesus had a firm understanding of his purpose on earth. He knew that he had come to die. He knew that his reason for existence was to go to the cross. So, the last thing Jesus teaches us about the relationship between Father and Son is they have a common mission.

So, based on the relationship between God the Father and Son, based on our theology of family, let me give you a few take homes. First, if you want to have the family you were made for, if you want to make it through the difficult times as a family, if you want to have a family where you find happiness and fulfillment, you’ve got to start with God. Family is an experience and expression of the divine. You need God to have the family you were made for. You need to seek God’s guidance and direction for your family. You need to study the Bible to understand how to live as a family, to know some of the mistakes to avoid, to know how you are supposed to fit in as a husband, father, son, wife, mother, daughter. You need to pray, and seek God for your family. You need to make God a priority in your family. You need God.

Second, fill your family with overwhelming, undying, unconditional love. Love each other the way Jesus has loved us and the way Father and Son love each other. Lavish your love on your family. Just like God’s love for himself forms the basis for his love for us, our love for each other in families forms the basis for all our other relationships. Family should be the place where we know, no matter what, we are loved.

Third, make sure your family is a place where you can know and be known. Where you don’t have to put on a mask, you don’t have to impress anybody, you don’t have to be a certain way, you can just be you and be known. Family should be the one place where you are truly known and where you truly know the other people in your family. Our children need to know that they don’t have to win our approval. Our spouses need to know that they can be real. Family needs to be the place where we are most known and yet still most loved.

Fourth, be a purpose driven family. As a family, this is what we are about, this is who we are, and this is what we live for. Make sure everyone in your family has a firm understanding of what you are about. We’ll talk more about that in weeks to come.

Now, one last thing I want you to see. Having looked at the relationship between the Father and the Son, knowing how infinitely Father and Son love each other from all eternity, knowing that they have forever existed in perfect harmony and fellowship with each other, I want you to look at the last Scripture on your outline. Jn. 3:16. Somehow, in the infinite wisdom of God, the perfect relationship between a loving Father and His Son, resulted in the Son going to the cross that we might have life.

Sunday Night Review

2010-06-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today was another great day at The Crossroads. We launched a new series simply called "FAMILY" that I am really excited about. We're going to be exploring some really straight up biblical instruction on God's plan for the family. We are doing this series because so many people are struggling with issues related to the family but don't know where to turn for help.

Today, I got to approach family in a way that I have never seen anyone else do it before. Not that I'm all that. I just never have seen anyone else do this. I developed a theology of family by looking at the family element of the Trinity (Father and Son). I probably can't give you a good understanding of it here in a recap, so I'll probably just post the manuscript of the message later. Anyhow, I really came to a greater understanding of God's love for us because of his love for his own glory and for his Son through this message. And, of course, I had fun doing it. I really do love to preach.

We had a great crowd this Sunday. I think it was our biggest since Easter. Each week, we are continuing to see new faces in the crowd. It is just amazing to watch. Our Kid's Cove children's area is overflowing. We had 62 in there today. We need more children's workers. So, if you are available, please let us know.

The band did an awesome job, as always. We had a new guitarist with the band today. We've had a great acoustic guitarist who has been faithful to us from the very start (Thanks, Jake). But we have really wrestled with finding a consistent electric guitarist. That's a pretty big hindrance since we do an alternative worship style. Well, because of some of the relationship connections that we are developing and because of our God on your iPod: Classic Rock series, we discovered a couple of guitarists were sitting in the crowd each week. Cory played with the band for the first time today, and he did awesome. Having an electric just really opens up some great stuff for us. So, praise God!

After our worship service, we went to one of the local city parks to do some more service. We have adopted a section of trail in the park to keep clean and looking nice. Today, we just did a trash pick up. Several families got out in the blistering Texas heat to help out. Then, we all hung out under a shade tree, and had a picnic together. We tossed the football around, played croquet, threw a flying disc, and played horseshoes. It was a great afternoon! I love connecting with some of the new people at The Crossroads!

Man, we are still on the ride of our lives, and I am loving every minute of it!

Sunday Night Review

2010-05-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

We had a great day today at The Crossroads. We were down a little because of the Memorial Day weekend, but attendance is still over double what it was at this time last year.

Today, we closed out our "God on your iPod: Classic Rock" series. It was an incredibly fun series that God really used in our people's lives. Today, we did "Revolution" by The Beatles, and I talked about how to live a revolutionary life. It's a theme I've shared before, but it always seems to capture people's hearts. People are just wired to hear that God designed us to change the world.

Each week in this series, we have had an impromptu band from the audience play the song for the week on Guitar Hero or Rockband. It has been a great way to engage our people in the service. It gives everybody a laugh, and it helps people stay engaged. I love serving a church where we can be creative and have a blast as we worship God.

Our band rocked the house today. For a closing song, our worship pastor did an original song that is straight up awesome. It was a great day, now I'm ready for some rest.

Oh yeah, I finished up my work with the Census Bureau this week. Now on to being a stay at home dad for the summer. Can't wait to get to spend some quality time with my kids and with some of my friends that I haven't seen in forever.

Maybe Tomorrow

2010-05-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

I had intended to come home and do some blogging tonight, but I worked an eleven hour day at the Census Bureau today, and I am just beat. This is my last week at the Census. It has been a good experience, and I have worked with a variety of neat people. I will blog about it more later.

I am incredibly grateful to have had this job. It has enabled us to finally get free of a mass of credit card debt that has hounded us for the last ten years. I really encourage you, if you are wrestling with debt, bite the bullet, take a second job, and get it paid off as fast as possible instead of trying to eat away at it a little at a time over years and years.

I'll just close by saying yesterday was yet another great day at The Crossroads. Attendance continues to grow, and each week we are seeing new faces and people put their trust in Christ.

So, that's all I got for today. There's more I'd like to get to, but it's not gonna happen tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Jesus Dunking

2010-05-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was an awesome day at The Crossroads. Yesterday evening we all went to a local YMCA Camp to use their pool for baptisms. Thirteen people went public with their commitment to follow Jesus Christ. It's the most people I've ever baptized at one time.

From the beginning one of our passions at The Crossroads has been seeing people's lives changed. Yesterday was just an incredible testimony to how God is doing that.

Just a few highlights: We baptized two couples together. Really cool to see God at work in the life of a husband and wife together. A father and his two sons took the plunge together. A mother and daughter also got dunked. I love seeing families transformed by the love and grace of Jesus Christ. The little girl is painfully shy. Getting baptized in front of a big group of people was a really hard thing for her to do. So, when I baptized her, I was reminded all over again of just how big a deal this baptism thing is. It's about publicly telling everybody, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ." So, I teared up a little as I brought her up out of the water. Finally, three of the baptisms were young girls, and their dads actually performed the baptisms. It was so awesome to see the look on both fathers' and daughters' faces. A truly beautiful moment.

An Ethic of Social Media - Part 2

2010-05-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

For the sake of brevity, I'll just say Twitter from here on since that is the form of social media I use most often, but the principles apply to all forms of social media, whichever one you use.

Because Twitter is an electronic media, it may be easy for us to forget that Twitter really is just another form of speech. The words may be in text and they may be delivered via the internet, but it is still speech. So, the same biblical instruction related to how we speak should govern our use of Twitter.

There are two scriptures that have particular bearing on our use of Twitter. Ephesians 4:29 relates to what we post. It says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." The first question we need to ask before we tweet is, "Is this beneficial to the people who listen?"

Now, granted, there is a lot of room for what can qualify as "helpful for building others up." As a pastor, I often tweet about my normal, day to day stuff. I think it is tremendously beneficial for my people to get to know their pastor as a real person. I also often tweet humorous stuff. I think laughter builds others up, and it is really just an important part of my personality. So, I'm certainly not saying that everything you tweet has to be serious or teaching something life-changing. However, it does mean that the general tone of our tweets should be positive, encouraging, and uplifting. Stay away from negative, mean-spirited, cutting tweets.

The second scripture, Colossians 4:6, relates to how we respond to others: "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Second, ask yourself the question, "Is my response to this person a demonstration of the incredible grace of Jesus Christ that I have received?" I often see people jumping someone else on Twitter. I'll get into more of the details of that particular piece of Twitter ethics later, but simply following this scripture should keep us from doing that. Frankly, some Twitter conversations get very uncomfortable very quickly for everyone else who is "listening." Remember that other people are witnessing your conversations, many of whom are not followers of Jesus Christ. Is the way you respond to other people on Twitter more or less likely to make your pre-Christian followers want to experience the grace of the Christ you profess to follow? Twitter is a social media, so the way you respond to others is very important.

Proverbs 16:28 says, "Gossip separates the best of friends." Although a great tool, Twitter can become one of the largest gossip machines we have ever encountered. Be careful about what you post about other people.

One of my personal favorites is Proverbs 17:28: "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." Sometimes the best thing to tweet is nothing at all. I'll confess, I'm not always the best at this. Sometimes I tweet before I think, and that's dangerous. It's probably a good habit to get into to read back over a tweet and pause just a moment before you hit send.

There are a lot of other scriptures related to our speech and the use of the tongue that should govern our tweets, but I'll stop there. Next time, I'll share with you a way of understanding Twitter and how that should inform how we use it.

An Ethic of Social Media - Part 1

2010-05-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of social media. I use it to connect with people, make new friends, learn about people's struggles so that I can encourage them and pray for them, reestablish relationships with old friends, communicate with people in my community, and just have a lot of fun. I often encourage people who aren't engaged in social media to give it a try and see the incredible world that is out there.

But social media is an incredibly new phenomenon. Think about it, just ten years ago, email or possibly chatrooms were our greatest exposure to personally connecting with other people on the internet. Today, for many people, it's hard to imagine our lives without Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace or a host of others. "Social media" has become one of the fastest-growing phenomena in American culture. Facebook currently boasts over 400 million users logging 500 billion minutes a month on the site. Twitter, the fastest growing social media site, now has over 100 million users and adds 300,000 new users every day.

As a church planter, social media has become an incredible tool for ministry. I strongly encourage all of our people to connect with me, each other, and the ministries of the church through our Facebook and Twitter presences. We may be one of the most social media connected churches out there (I know, that sentence sounds funny, but social media is so new that there aren't even adjectives to describe it yet.). Over ninety percent of our attenders (I'd guess about 99%) have a Facebook account, and approximately 75% of our people are on Twitter.

We use these outlets to communicate about upcoming stuff in the church, to promote our Sunday services, to remind people of the main points of the message during the week, to distribute information specific to our ministries, to do polls about important topics, and to send out invitations to our friends, just to name a few. Twitter and Facebook are a great way to get information out rapidly to a large percentage of our church members in an incredibly rapid manner. Need to change a meeting time? I can do it in a matter of seconds. Someone facing a crisis? People can find out about it and begin praying quickly. Have a need for a particular ministry? Put it out there for all the Twitter and Facebook world to see.

Twitter and Facebook are also incredible ways to "close the back door of the church." If someone attends our services for the first time and I can connect with them through Twitter or Facebook within a week or two, I can almost guarantee they are going to get plugged in and become an active part of our church.

So, I'm a really big fan.

However, like so often in the past, our use of new technology has outpaced our thinking about that technology, particularly the development of an ethic of social media. How should we relate to others on social media? What should we post or not post on social media? Are there dangers we should be aware of related to social media?

I certainly haven't developed a full ethic of social media, but I've developed a few principles for social media with my use of it fairly extensively over the last three years. I'll share those principles in the next few posts.

Be a Drip

2009-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago I talked about not listening to the drips in your life. Don't listen to the individual voices of criticism that come into your life and try to do damage. Instead, listen to the beautiful rain of all the other voices of encouragement and support in your life.

But today, I want to encourage you to be a drip. What I mean is this: I often hear people say something along the lines of, "I'd like to do something about (fill in the blank), but I'm only one person. What can one person do? What difference can one person make?"

I confess, I feel this way sometimes, myself. Every year, when we go to Mexico at Christmas to give out blankets and supplies to people in need, I am encouraged by the great sacrifice people make to send blankets and go on the trip. I feel good about the fact that we are making a difference. But, inevitably, at some point in the trip, I am overcome by the immensity of the task. For all the people we are able to help, there are still thousands who we are unable to help.

I get that way when I think about the enormous task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. There are currently somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 billion people in the world who are in unreached people groups. An unreached people group (UPG) is a group of people who share the same language and culture and among whom there are less than 2 Christians for every hundred people. What that means is, for people in a UPG, there is a really good chance that they will live and die without ever even having heard about Jesus unless something changes to give them access to the gospel. With so many billions of people needing Christ, how can I, one person do anything to significantly impact the lostness of the world?

I was confronted with this feeling of being overwhelmed a couple of weeks ago when I learned about child slave trafficking related to chocolate production. I realized that I have responsibility for the purchases I make each day. I was talking to our youth about this and about our need to consider the purchases we make and how those purchases impact other people's lives. One of the kids was insistent that there is nothing we can do. We are not responsible for what happens to other people in other parts of the world and what difference would it really make whether I stopped buying chocolate or not.

But we can make a difference. One drip may not make that big a difference, but put a whole lot of drips together and they create floods that can move mountains, create rivers, generate electricity. Your single drip, when joined together with others can make a difference. Don't give up because you think your one voice cannot make a difference. Throughout the Bible, God's justice is pictured as a mighty water. We can be the rushing torrent of God's justice making a difference in the world.

On any given Sunday in America, there are more people attending church than attend all professional sporting events in a year's time. What would happen if that force were set free, turned loose for God? What would happen if we let "justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:24)? We have the ability to change the world, if we let our drips join together to form a flood of compassion and love and mercy and justice and righteousness.

What we think we can do and the difference we can make is often through the lenses of our own abilities and our own inabilities. But that has nothing to do with what God can do when we yield our lives to him. God doesn't ask us to make the difference. He just asks us to place our lives in his hands, at his disposal, and see what he can do with them.

One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It's been a long day. Five thousand men plus women and children have been gathered listening to Jesus teach all day. They are beginning to get hungry, and the disciples come and point this out to Jesus (Like he didn't know!). So Jesus says, "You feed them!" Jesus knows he is about to do something miraculous. Jesus could have just conjured food out of thin air. But he doesn't. He tells the disciples to feed them. Why? Because he wants them involved. He wants the offering of their lives. He wants them passing the food out to the hungry and needy in the crowd. He is going to do the miracle, but they are going to be the channel through which it takes place.

The disciples say it can't be done. The task is just too big. How can they do anything to feed this many people? And yet...they come to Jesus with what they've got. "Jesus, here's a little boy with his spiderman lunch box, and he's got some sardines and a few crackers. Haha. But what good are they among so many? Haha."

So Jesus takes that little boy's lunch and with it he feeds the entire crowd so that there are twelve basketfuls of leftovers (one for each of the disciples?). The disciples offer up the little bit they can come up with, thinking it won't be near enough, and God does a miracle. One other thing I am always impressed by in this story. Jesus does something incredible, that no one there would ever forget, but one little boy had to offer up his lunch. He gave the little he had, and God did something unbelievable with it. He was a drip.

So, I encourage you to be a drip. Whatever it is that God is calling you to, whatever the big, massive, overwhelming task that he is asking you to take on that will change people's lives and impact the world and extend the kingdom, whatever the thing that seems so big that there is no way you can do it, do it! Take on the challenge! Offer up the little bit that you've got and just see what God can do with it.

Don't Listen to the Drips

2009-07-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

It's raining today in North Texas, just one of those slow, steady, all-day, beautiful rain showers. It is so incredibly relaxing listening to the rain as it falls to the ground outside my window where I am working.

I love the sound of a good summer rainstorm. But I hate the sound of a single drip. You know the sound. Like a leaky faucet with a steady drip that slowly pounds its way into your brain until the only sound you can hear is that drip....drip....drip...drip...drip. Somehow, the individual little drips drown out everything else. You cannot focus on anything other that the sound of the drips.

Funny how the individual drips can be so annoying, so aggravating, so contentious, while lots of drips together can be soothing, relaxing, and refreshing. It's all about focus. Do you focus on the sound of the single drip or the melody of all the drops of rain together.

The people in our lives, and the voices we allow to speak into our lives are often like those drips. The Bible says that a nagging wife annoys like a constant dripping (Prov. 19:13). Really, I think you can extend that verse to other voices of criticism in our lives. The critics, the naysayers, the discouragers, and complainers in our lives are like a constantly dripping faucet. They continue to hound us, continue to make their voice heard, continue to drip...drip...drip...drip...drip. They wear us down. They cause us to be distracted, discouraged, and frustrated. They demand our attention. And pretty soon, all we hear is the sound of the drips. Our focus gets off of other, more important things because we are so annoyed and overcome by the dripping.

But there are a lot of other voices in our lives. People who love us and encourage us and support us. People who speak words of love and affirmation into our lives. People who instruct us, challenge us, inspire us, pray for us. People whose drips do not annoy us, but who come together to form a beautiful symphony of raindrops that are relaxing, soothing, supportive, encouraging.

Really, we have a choice in life. Will we focus on the drips, the few individual voices that when heard alone, listened to in isolation, can annoy and even destroy us? Will we give more attention to the few voices of criticism? Or will we make the choice to listen to the beautiful symphony of raindrops God gives us in life? Will we choose to focus on the sound of applauding raindrops in our life?

I know I have been guilty of doing the former often in my life. In fact, it is one of my greatest weaknesses. I listen to the individual drops, focusing on the annoying voices of a couple of individuals, instead of listening to the crowd who cheers me on. But I would much rather listen to the rain. So that is what I am going to do. Focus on the beauty of the many instead of the sometimes annoyance of the few.

Don't listen to the drips in your life. Listen to the beautiful rain that God brings into our lives.

Monday Morning Update

2009-07-27T09:11:00.001-07:00

Yet another amazing weekend at The Crossroads. This is supposed to be the time of year when attendance dips, and church growth really is not substantial. People are gone on vacation, spending time at the lake, doing things with their family. It's hot, and people just like sleeping in during the summer months. So, typically, in church life, you just try to survive through the summer.

That seemed like it was going to be the pattern for us during the month of June. Attendance took a dip, and it was kind of discouraging. But something has happened during July. We kicked off a new message series called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring blockbuster movies from this summer and seeing the greater story of God's love written in them. We have done a couple of block parties in the community and gave away helium balloons at the city's 4th of July celebration.

So, I don't know if those things are an explanation, but for some reason our attendance has taken off in July. In fact, it's the highest average attendance we've had for any month so far. We baptized four people this month, and have at least one more coming up next week. We are really excited, but this definitely represents a challenge for us. Looks like we will have to be moving into a new meeting space very soon. Please pray for us. This will represent a significant increase in our costs. We need at least ten people to commit to giving $200 a month to cover the cost of new facilities. We would love for you to partner with us in this way.

My wife did an awesome job with her Monday Morning Update, so I'm just going to modify it to give you the rest of the details on this weekend. Saturday we did another movie night/block party. This time we used Slater Creek Park, the local city park. It's new and a great location, but we had a very low attendance at this movie night. In our evaluation we came up with a few possibilities. 1. The park is not easily visible from the highway - no drive-by stoppers. 2. Have to do more marketing if we use the park - We advertised on a mailer that primarily focused on the sermon series. In communities, it is a lot easier to gather a crowd. Not so much so in the city park. In the future, if we do stuff in the park, we will be sure to get something in the newspaper. 3. It was one of the hottest days we have had in quite a while. However, we enjoyed meeting the people who turned out for the event and are already planning and looking forward to one more summer block party in August. We will be collecting school supplies to give away in a needy community at that block party.

Our Sunday worship celebration was really incredible. Robby and the band did a great job leading us. We had a new drummer sit in with us, and he did a really good job. We also had our bass player back with us this week. He's been out a lot this summer as he has been working at a church camp. It was great to have him back.

For the message, today's movie in "God at the Movies" was Terminator: Salvation. The movie is an illustration of sacrifice, and second chances. I talked about how to make your life count and pointed out that the answer to that question both in Terminator and in the Bible is sacrifice. The way to meaning in life is giving your life away for God and giving your life away for other people. The message will soon be online at www.welcometothecrossroads.com Be sure to download and listen to it soon.

We had several new families stop by to check us out. One of the coolest stories is that a lady who had never been to church - ever in her 41 years- came. And loved it.... wept through the whole service. A couple of our ladies got to spend some time sharing with her and praying for her after the service. It is so beautiful to see God at work. We also had the opportunity to pray over a new believer in our congregation who will be leaving tomorrow for basic training for the army. We have another baptism coming up August 2. I love this part of church planting - seeing God drastically and dramatically change people's lives.

Continue praying for a meeting place for us. We are in immediate need of space. We are now consistently running about 20 in children's church. We do not have space for them inside. Meeting outside with them works as long as it doesn't rain. When colder weather arrives, we will have to be in a larger space. Please pray for our workers. As we grow, we will have to pull in more workers and right now we are pretty maxed out on volunteers. Pray that those of us who volunteer will be very flexible during this time of growth. We need grace for the journey as we work with children who have not been to church before. We want to provide opportunities for them to hear about Jesus and learn how He can become their Savior. Pray that we will never lose sight of why we do what we do in children's.

Also pray that we will be able to increase Robby's salary. Our goal is to eventually bring him on as a full-time staff member. Every week many of you read about the incredible job he is doing with The Crossroads. What you may not be aware of is that he works a full time job in Dallas to support his family. We would love to be able to bring Robby on full time, but we need several more monthly sponsors in order to do that. If you are not currently giving, please pray about helping us meet this goal. Feel free to share this need with others in your congregations who are praying for us so that they will ask the God of the universe to meet this need abundantly.

Apollo 11 and My iPhone - Potential

2009-07-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, an amazing moment in the history of the United States, marking the fulfillment of one of JFK's promises in his inaugural address and a significant statement about U.S. progress as opposed to the Soviet Union. Not to mention, it was an incredible feat of human daring do and ingenuity.

Something I heard on the radio about the landing caught my attention. Apparently the computers inside most of our cell phones today are more powerful than the computer used to send Apollo 11 to the moon. Seriously? And what do I use my phone for? Playing Star Wars the Force Unleashed? Checking my Facebook? Updating my Twitter status? Certainly nothing near as incredible as sending men to the moon.

Now, don't get me wrong. My iPhone is an important tool in my life and my ministry. Some of the significant things I am able to do in fulfilling my God-given mission in life happen because of that phone. I keep track of my schedule, my to do lists, organizing events, making contact with guests, setting up appointments. All of my contacts' phone numbers, addresses, and emails are in that phone. I use it to give me directions to places I need to go. I use it to keep connected with friends, family, and people in my community. I keep people posted about things that are happening in my life so they feel connected to their pastor. I use it for studying for my sermons while I am on the go, having my quiet time with my wife in the mornings, and keeping track of ideas that God is giving me for the church, my blog, messages, etc. All of those are important tasks, and my iPhone really is a tool that I use for ministry.

But sending someone to the moon? Not hardly. Locked inside that little iPhone in my hand is the potential to send someone to the moon. I think I hardly ever really put it to the limits of what it is capable of doing. I have found the same thing to be true about my life all so often. Locked inside of me is the potential to do some incredible things, to unleash the power of God's Spirit in my life and the lives of the people around me, to truly make a difference in the world, to boldly go where no one has gone before. But too often my life is consumed with the ordinary. I'm messing with apps on my iPhone, watching some pointless television show, figuring out how I can keep up with the Joneses (and I live in Texas, so the Joneses have a lot to keep up with), or a host of other things that really aren't spending my life to its fullest potential.

You see, God says that his goal for every Christ-follower is for us to become just like his son (Rom. 8:28). Jesus even said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" (Jn. 14:12). Seriously? I honestly cannot think of a time in my life where I have done anything even remotely close to the things Jesus did. Apparently I have within me somewhere the potential to do the things that Jesus did and even more. Now think about that for just a minute. What did Jesus do? He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, raised the dead, walked on water, fed crowds of thousands with a can of sardines and some crackers, walked on water, calmed storms, cast out demons, loved the unlovely, comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable, hung out with the worst sorts of sinners, died on a cross for the sins of the world, came back from the dead defeating death and the grave and kicking the devil in the nuts in the process, and he did all that by the time he was in his mid-thirties. "He will do even greater things than these." Really?

It's like Jesus is the Apollo 11 lunar lander and I am the iPhone. I don't know that in this life I will ever live up to my potential, but I'd like to live a little closer to it. Here's the trick. It's not about me trying harder, striving more. The potential is already there inside of me. And that potential is the power of Christ living through me. The only way I can even come close to approaching my potential is as I allow Christ to live in and through me. And I want to do a better job of that. I want more of the power that raised Christ from the dead living through me and less of the power that put a Facebook app on the iPhone living through me.

Monday Morning Update

2009-07-20T17:36:00.001-07:00

Maybe I should change the name of this column to "Whenever I Happen to Get around to Getting It Done Update." Seems like I never can get around to actually getting this thing out on Monday morning.

Oh well, yesterday was another incredible day at The Crossroads. We went in on Saturday evening this week to get the truck unloaded in hopes that not having the doors to the cheer gym open on Sunday morning would help with cooling. No such luck. It was still HOT by the time we got through.

The amazing thing is that now that we are in the peak of summer heat, our attendance has hit all time highs. We had 77 people in attendance this weekend. We are growing to the point that we requested one of our sponsor churches to buy us some new chairs this week. Continue to pray for God to provide us with a new meeting place before we outgrow our current meeting space.

We started a new message series this week called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring the greatest story, the story of God's purpose and plan, as it is reflected in some of the biggest blockbuster movies this summer. This week we started with Star Trek and talked about fulfilling your destiny. It was a tough message to preach. The notion that we have a destiny, that there are certain things that are determined in our lives, particularly that our relationship with Christ comes from God's predestination of certain people to salvation is not especially popular. I tried to introduce the subject in a manner that was easily understandable and just began to open the subject for people. It's really important for people to grasp that life is not an accident, and that God is working out his purpose in our lives for his glory.

During the service, we presented a check for $5,000 to another church plant to use for purchasing a truck for moving their equipment. It is our commitment to be involved in helping plant at least one church a year. This is the first time that we have done this. We are excited that in our first year as a church plant, we are already involved in spreading the kingdom by helping to plant another church.

Robby and the band did an incredible job this week. We had been without our guitarist for the last two weeks. Having him back really gave us that extra something. Our people were really engaged in worship. Another high from the service was that one person made a decision for Christ, and another one rededicated their life to Christ. It was an awesome service.

Then, in the evening, LaRissa and I got to go with three friends to see Terminator:Salvation again. This is the movie that we will be looking at next week, and I wanted to see it again so I could have a better understanding of some of the storyline. We were blessed to have a really good friend watch all of our kids so we could go. I look forward to talking about how to make your life count.

God's Travel Agent

2009-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

On Monday, LaRissa and I, along with our friends Mark and Bridgette, had an exciting meeting that represents a significant next step toward the vision of The Crossroads. We met with God's Travel Agent, Tiffany Smith. Okay, that's not really her title. Officially, she is "Missions Mobilization Associate" for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Her responsibilities encompass learning about missions efforts around the world, identifying needs, connecting with missionaries, and mobilizing mission teams from within the state of Texas to go all over the world to carry out the Great Commission. Tiffany is also passionate about what she does, and she has an infectious joy that spills over to others. Our wonderful, mission-minded, team of believers at The Crossroads have fallen in love with Tiffany and affectionately gave her the nickname "God's Travel Agent" because that really is what she does.

One of the central elements of the vision of The Crossroads is a passion for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, for significantly impacting the world for the kingdom, and for seeing the fulfilment of the Great Commission in our lifetime. One of the pieces of that is identifying an unreached or unengaged people group (UPG or UEG) and adopting them as our own as a church. Now, for definitions. An unreached people group is a people group (group of people who share the same culture and same language) in which less than 2% of the population is Christian. An unengaged people group is a people group in which there are no Christians. For most of these people groups, they do not have the bible in their language and do not have a sustainable Christian movement. To make it easier to understand, if you live in one of these people groups, there is a great likelihood that you will be born, live your life, and die without ever even hearing the name of Jesus Christ. The task of fulfilling the Great Commission is really about penetrating these groups with the gospel.

So, the missions strategy for The Crossroads involves more than just taking sporadic mission trips to different parts of the world and feeling good about doing something. We want to be much more strategic. Our vision is to identify and adopt an unreached people group that we will do everything we can to reach that people group with the gospel and be a part of creating a sustainable church planting movement within that people group.

Our meeting with Tiffany was the first step in that process. We met with Tiffany to learn about how we can discover UPGs and UEGs, learn more about them, and begin the process of identifying which people group we will adopt as our own. We also talked to her about what adopting a people group would actually mean in terms of what we do, how to connect with a missionary who is trying to reach a UPG or UEG, and how we financially support people who are willing to go on mission.

This is just the beginning of the process, but it is an exciting start. We are so thankful for a great resource like Tiffany and for a church with a passion for reaching the world for Christ. We are truly blessed as a church because we are already light years ahead of where most churches are at this point.

Monday Morning Update

2009-07-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, another incredible weekend at The Crossroads. On Friday evening, several of us got together and canvassed a neighborhood passing out fliers about our family movie night coming up on Saturday.

The movie night is something we discovered last summer as a fun and successful outreach to families in Anna. Some of the needs we have heard expressed from people about Anna are: there isn't really a sense of community, people don't know their neighbors, and there's nothing for families to do. So, we found that putting on a movie for families is a great way to meet these needs.

We have a twelve foot, inflatable movie screen that we set up outdoors. We also serve popcorn, drinks, and movie candy, and we set up a bounce house for the kids to play in, all this under the stars on a hot Texas evening. People really dig getting out with their families to watch the movie. This time, my awesome, beautiful, and super intelligent wife came up with the idea of showing "The Wizard of Oz." It was perfect. Many of the parents are the right age to remember when The Wizard of Oz came on television once a year, and families gathered to watch it. Many of their children, in turn, have never seen it. So, with one movie, we got children, parents, and grandparents out to watch a movie. We had about 100 people turn out for the event, and had a really amazing time.

Our team did an awesome job, as always, meeting people and serving the community.

Then, on Sunday, we geared up for another hot Sunday in the cheer gym. Middle of the summer, and we had almost 75 people in attendance. Awesome! This week, in lieu of the typical Sunday sermon, I did a thing called "The Hot Seat." I sat on a stool, and people submitted questions about life, God, and the Bible. They could ask questions vocally, by writing them out, or by twittering questions to us. We posted each of these on the screen, and I answered them as they came in. It's always fun for me, and people really tend to enjoy it.

I did discover, however, that this exercise is a little more difficult now that I am in a new church plant reaching people who haven't been plugged in to church. My answers had to be a little bit longer because I could not automatically assume that people knew the Bible stories. I'm not sure I was entirely successful with that. I will have to work on that a little more in the future. On the other hand, it is a good way to expose people to an awful lot of bible teaching/doctrine/scripture in one setting.

This was a different experience, too, from when I have done it in the past because of the nature of the questions. In traditional church, the questions often tended to focus on matters of Bible trivia, minutiae of biblical knowledge, or apologetic (defending the faith) types of questions. In the church plant setting, however, the questions tended more toward questions about dealing with life and struggles with faith and being a Christian. I thought that was very cool. It shows we really are impacting people right where they are living. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and made for a great service. The podcast will be up at www.welcometothecrossroads.com later this week.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, we went to the Collin County Adventure Camp and baptized four people, two husbands and their wives. One of them was a guy who is in our men's group and decided it was time to go public with his decision to follow Christ. His wife was baptized as a child, but wanted to be baptized together with her husband to reaffirm her faith in Christ and in support of her husband's decision. The other couple was a guy who is getting ready to go into active duty in the army and his wife. They came to our church for the first time just last week. She committed her life to Christ in the service and the two of them wanted to be baptized. Awesome! Afterwards, we went over to one of the couples' home to have a cookout and celebrate. Great way to cap off an incredible weekend.

Next week we kick off our new message series "God at the Movies." We are going to be looking at some of the biblical themes that run through some of this summer's biggest blockbusters. I hope to see you there.

Monday Morning Update

2009-07-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know, it's nowhere near Monday, but we left town Sunday afternoon to go to my parents' house, and this is the first time I've had opportunity to sit down and write about the weekend.

We really had an incredible weekend at The Crossroads. It actually started Saturday as we celebrated the 4th of July. Several of us went to the home of some Crossroadies and ate brisket and played Guitar Hero World Tour together. We had a great time, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed being around each other. I thank God for the incredible people he has brought together at The Crossroads.

Afterwards, we went to the Anna High School football field to watch the Anna Fireworks display. A couple of friends of mine are responsible for putting on the show, and they did an incredible job. As people were arriving for the event, we gave out helium balloons to all the kids with The Crossroads' logo and website URL on them. Just another great way for us to make connection with the community and show God's love to them.

Sunday morning broke with heavy rain showers. This made for cooler temperatures, which was wonderful since we meet in a cheer gym that has questionable air conditioning at best. However, rainy days usually don't make for the best church attendance, especially when you are a new church plant reaching people who haven't been to church in years or who have never been to church. Couple that with the fact that it was the 4th of July weekend, and we just weren't expecting to see a lot of people. In fact, five minutes before the service started, it looked like it was just going to be our really committed people there.

But, God loves to surprise us. We had a group of old friends join to worship with us, and two new families also came. The service was great. Our team that went to Mexico shared about their experiences there. It's so awesome to see the passion for mission that we are already developing in this church that is less than a year old. They shared about how going to Mexico changed their view of things (That's why I love taking people on an international mission trip. It changes their view of the world and gives them a greater passion for the Great Commission.) and some of the awesome thinngs God did while we were there. At the end, I used a witnessing bracelet that we used with the kids in Mexico to explain the simple message of the gospel.

After the service was over, I looked through our decision cards and found that two of our guests had given their lives to Christ. One of those and another of our guests said they wanted to get baptized. So, on a rainy Sunday morning on a major holiday weekend when I really wasn't preaching, two people gave their lives to Christ. Amazing!

This weekend, we will be showing a movie in one of the neighborhoods in Anna and we will have a baptism on Sunday evening. Great times and really cool things are happening at The Crossroads.

Men vs. Women at the Movies

2009-07-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, a group of ladies from The Crossroads had a "Girls Night Out." They went out to eat at Chic-Fil-A, went to the movies, then went to Starbucks afterwards. From all reports, they had an incredible time. I am so excited to see how our women are really connecting with each other, forming a family, and reaching out to other women in the process.

But what interested me the most was the choice of movie. The ladies went to see My Sister's Keeper. As I understand it, the movie is about a mother who has a daughter with a rare form of leukemia. Her life revolves around meeting her daughter's every need in her battle against cancer. In pursuing treatment for her daughter, she and her husband take the radical step of having another daughter genetically engineered to be the perfect donor for their ailing daughter. There's more to it, but you get the jist of it. Now, I have not seen the movie, and really don't plan to, but from what I can tell, it's what my dad would call a "tear jerker." Several of our ladies confirmed there was a lot of crying throughout the movie.

Now, contrast that with some of the "Guys' Movie Nights" I've been to so far this summer. We have seen Taken (father kicks butt rescuing his daughter from prostitution ring), Star Trek (space battles, fistfights, adventure), Wolverine (guy with claws that extend from his fist and an indestructible skeleton takes on lots of bad guys), Terminator Salvation (John Connor battles in the future to rescue humanity from control of machines), Transformers (super cool cars turn into robots to battle evil robots who are trying to take over the world). We are also eagerly waiting for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (elite fighting force takes on superterrorists).

So, huge difference in the choice of movies between guys and girls. But the choice of movies is really insightful when it comes to understanding men and women. Our ladies went to see a movie that was high on emotional content and emphasized the value of relationships, two things that are integral to who women are and what they are about. Women tend to be much more connected to their emotions than men. Women have a much greater understanding of emotional expression and enjoy exploring the subtle nuances of emotion. But it is not just raw emotion that is important. It is emotion as it relates to relationships: mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, close friends. Men, if you are going to understand women, you have to understand this emotion/relationship component of who women are.

Now, let's contrast that with men. I can never imagine a group of men going to see a movie that is going to make them cry, that is heavy on emotional content, or that explores the emotional connections within a relationship. Men go see movies where there is fighting, where things blow up, where there is cool technology, where there is high suspense. Now, a lot of people (women, be careful here) will make light of men's choice in movies. But to do so is to miss in a fundamental way the incredible heart of a man. What are the common factors in the movies men like? Courage, valor, sacrifice, adventure, integrity, conviction, defending the innocent, pursuing your destiny, fighting for what is right, loyalty (that's a relationship issue, btw) and a host of other similar things. Now, what is common to all these things? They are all issues of character. If women connect to emotion and have a greater capacity for grasping emotion in the context of relationship, men connect with issues of character.

For men, emotion is not the important factor in our decisions and our actions. It is character that counts. What kind of man are you? How are you living from the reality of who you are deep down? What are your core convictions about life? Ladies, if you miss this, if you make light of this, you will fail to grasp what is at the heart of men.

Now, the truth is, we need each other. Men, we need women to help us gain understanding into relationship issues and connecting with the emotion that God has given to us. Women, you need men whose leadership, decision-making, and ability to stand up for his family and what is right are built on a strong sense of character. It's not that either of us are right or wrong about the movies we go see. Movies are simply a reflection of what is really important to us, and understanding what is central to those movies will help you gain access to what is really important to the men or women in your life.

GOD on Your iPOD: "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback

2009-06-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I know, some of you think Nickelback is cheesy. I have to admit, I like their stuff, and this one is a really good one. It sounds some of the same notes as in "It's Not My Time" by Three Doors Down, so I won't rehash all the themes I pointed out in that one. If you want to hear the audio from that message, you can listen to the podcast here.

"If Today Was Your Last Day" is simply a song about making the most of the time you have here on earth. That is certainly a biblical concept. The Bible tells us repeatedly that our lives are short that they are determined and that we must make the most of every opportunity for doing God's work while we are here on earth.

I really like some of the stuff happening at the end of the video as people take opportunity to do some things to make a difference. I hope we as the church will start doing more things like this.

Monday Morning Update

2009-06-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's not Monday morning, but I'm still jetlagged from our mission trip last week. And that's the first thing to report on. Last week nine of us from The Crossroads traveled along with friends from Fairview Church and Joshua's Crossing Church to Las Higuerillas, Mexico. Las Higuerillas is a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast about 50 miles southeast of Matomoros. We distributed beans, rice, and hygiene items along with gospel tracts, gospels of John, and Bibles, did Bible Schools in different areas of the village, and showed an evangelistic video. It was an amazing trip, and we saw the face of Jesus in so many ways. My wife kept a daily log of our time on the trip, so if you'd like to know more details and see the incredible ways God moved, you can read it at her blog. Our team will also be sharing in our service this week, so come hear from them about their experience of being on mission.

The thing that really excited me about this trip is that it represents our second international mission trip in the life of our church, and we aren't even a year old yet. We are intentionally building mission into the DNA of The Crossroads. We are even considering having new members fill out a passport application during the new members' class so they understand the importance of being ready and available to go whenever God gives the opportunity. Our next step is identifying an unreached people group that we will target as a church and begin to develop strategies for our church to be involved in reaching that people group for Christ. We'd love to have others involved, so please contact me if you want to join us in reaching the world for Christ.

Our services this weekend were really great. I love what Robby, our worship pastor, and the band do each week. They really get what it means to bring people into God's presence. We finished out our message series "HOME" this week by talking about how to live for Christ in the workplace. You can listen to the podcast here.

I was a little discouraged that our attendance was down some this week. We still had visitors, as we do each week, but our attendance was down from what it has been. The summer slump seems to be hitting us. Also, the temperature in the cheer gym where we meet was close to unbearable. We are working on a solution with our landlord, so please be in prayer that we get something to happen ASAP.

We are continuing to pursue some other options in terms of our meeting place. Please be in prayer for that also. I'll give you more details as I have them.

Finally, Sunday night we gathered together with Pin Oaks Christian Fellowship in Anna for a OnePrayer service. Pin Oaks' pastor is Phil Morgan, a great guy and a good friend with a heart for our city. We got together to simply worship and pray for the world and for our city. Our worship band, Chasing Lions, led us and did a super job. Praying together as the body of Christ with other believers in our city was a special experience, and I hope we are able to do it more often in the future.

My Favorite New Commercial

2009-06-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

It's politically incorrect and a little bit corny, but it makes me laugh every time I see it.

GOD on Your iPOD: "Know Your Enemy" by Green Day

2009-06-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

The newest offering by California-based punk rock band Green Day is 21st Century Breakdown. "Know Your Enemy," the first single released from the album came out in April of this year.

The repeated tagline of the song is "Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy? Well, gotta know the enemy, wah hey." The song is actually about anarchy, common fodder for the antiestablisment tendencies of punk. Other lines in the song that further the anarchic theme are: "Violence is an energy against the enemy," "Revolt against the honor to obey," "Overthrow the effigy, the vast majority," "Silence is the enemy against your urgency, so rally up the demons in your soul."

So, seen through the lenses of punk, the song sounds a common call to rise against the status quo, against the control of restrictive government or any other system that seeks conformity.

But, if you look with God lenses, there's much more that can be gleaned. The basic question is a vital one: "Do you know the enemy?" Let's make this simple. Far too few people really understand who the enemy is in life. We spend our days fighting with other people, fighting with traffic, fighting with our government, fighting with our finances, fighting with worries and stresses. And as a result, we lose sight of the real enemy, Satan.

And the refusal to acknowledge his reality, his activity, and his presence, is exactly what he wants. If we do not recognize him, we get caught up in things that don't matter. We make other people, people created in God's image, the object of our hatred and anger. We get frustrated over things that we aren't supposed to try to handle in the first place. We allow little goadings by the devil to "spur us on to hate and evil deeds." We spend our time on things that don't matter. We listen to lies that he tells us to discourage us, to keep us silent, to keep us from taking action, to keep us from following our God-given dreams.

It is vitally important that we know our enemy. Who is he? A few things the Bible tells us about him. He is the father of lies and everything that comes from his mouth is a lie. He is the accuser of the saints, standing before God always making accusations against God's people. He is a deceiver. He makes evil look attractive. He is a serpent and a dragon, but he masquerades in resplendent beauty as an angel of light. He has set himself against God and God's people and seeks to devour us like a lion on the prowl.

From the punk rock standpoint, the anarchy encouraged in the song is certainly a tool that our enemy loves to use. But, I think you can probably make something else out of the song, turning it on it's head entirely if you see Satan as the real enemy instead of an ordered society. I'll leave it to you to make the rest of the applications from the song. Let me know what you get.

Monday Morning Update

2009-06-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, I stole the title from the same column on my wife's blog. She does an awesome job of keeping a lot of you posted on what goes on at The Crossroads each week. She has a beautiful heart and a wonderful perspective, and God often shows her some incredible things each week.

But I thought it would be beneficial if you heard from me each week as well. (And, it's an easy way for me to keep something going on my blog.)

This week was a great week at The Crossroads. Of course, having said that, every week truly is phenomenal at The Crossroads. I cannot wait to see what God is going to do.

We are currently in our second week of a message series called "HOME" in which we are talking about how to make your house more than just a hotel where people crash each night and eat a couple of meals. Making your house a home is about the relationships that exist between the people that live there. Alright, enough of that. I don't want to preach the sermon to you.

Our attendance has been down a little for the summer, but we continue to see new faces each week, and this week was no different. We had four first time visitors and a number of guests who are beginning to plug in and get more involved at The Crossroads. One of our guests even made a decision for Christ today.

Our music today was incredible. Our worship pastor has such a gift for bringing us into God's presence and being sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. For more on the worship set, you can check out LaRissa's blog. The song that God really seemed to use today was "Lead Me to the Cross." It's the first time that we've done this one, and worshipdude passed off leading this one to one of our female vocalists. Got to say, she really hit this one out of the park, and the song is so incredibly beautiful anyway. We literally had people standing with hands raised, sitting with heads bowed, falling on the floor kneeling and weeping. Beautiful moment. I really love the incredible people we get to work with each week at The Crossroads.

The message today was about honoring your father and mother. I am just amazed and humbled at how God moved in such an incredible way through a service focused on honoring your parents. The message wasn't anything radical. Just respect, obey, care for, and forgive your parents; yet, people were moved and lives were changed. We had some technical issues with capturing the audio, so no podcast this week, but you can download the manuscript at our website. Overall, just an incredible day!

On another note, a couple of things for you to pray for this week: I have an incredibly important meeting tomorrow afternoon that could have a significant impact on the future for The Crossroads. It is one possible opportunity for us for a new meeting place. Pray that God gives us incredible wisdom and direction as far as this opportunity is concerned. Also pray that God grants us immense favor with the man who owns the space we are looking at. We really need God to come through in a big way on this one.

Also, pray for a group of us from The Crossroads who will be traveling to Las Higuerillas, Mexico, next week. Las Higuerillas is a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast where there has been little missions activity. We will be distributing school supplies, Bibles, and showing the Jesus video in Spanish. Pray for safe travel and for God to be at work in an incredible way.

GOD on Your iPOD: "Lifeline" by Papa Roach

2009-06-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a reeeallly long time since I blogged about anything, but I got an idea for a new feature on the blog.

In May, we finished up a message series at The Crossroads called "GOD on your iPOD" in which we looked at the message of God's love that is written into so many of the songs that connect with us and that we listen to each week. Now, a little more explanation, I'm not talking about explicitly "Christian" songs. In fact, that was one of the requirements. The songs had to be from artists that did not exclusively bill themselves as Christian artists, although some of the artists may have been Christ followers. The songs also had to have charted well in some area within the last year. Beyond that, we were just looking for songs that showed that God speaks through and to people through music. If you'd like to hear more, you can listen to all of them on The Crossroads' podcast at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/.

I had more fun with this message series than any I have ever done before. We already have committed to doing a message series like this each year. I was really sad to see the series come to an end, and there were still so many songs that could have been a part of this series.

So, I've decided to just keep you posted on some of the music out there that peaks my interest, that causes me to think, and that connects me with the greater story of God's love as I encounter them. Maybe I'm the only one that will see the message in some of them, but I hope it will start some discussion and keep you listening to music with a discerning ear and listening for the still, small voice of God as he sings his love songs over us.

Alright, well, the first song I want to introduce you to is by the punk/hard rock band Papa Roach. The song is called "Lifeline." I first heard the song a month or so ago and immediately was captured by it. It talks about someone who has had some really big struggles in life and wants someone to throw them a lifeline. Listen and let me know what you think.

Why Social Media Matters

2009-03-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

If you are still wondering about the importance and value of social media, here's a rundown of my day and how my networks allowed some really cool opportunities.

I started the day having breakfast with a Facebook, pastor friend. We talked about different ways of connecting with people in our congregations. By the time breakfast was over, I had convinced him that he really needed to give Twitter a try. I hope to be able to connect with him there soon.

Next, I spent some time on Facebook connecting with some old friends from high school and college. One of them contacted me within an hour of my connecting with him to share some pretty heavy stuff. I was able to offer some encouragement and prayer and share some of the struggles from my own life. I really hope I am able to continue to redevelop this friendship with a really cool guy who has faced some tough times.

Then, I sent out a couple of tweets based on Sunday's message that were picked up by a couple of other guys in the Twittersphere and passed along to their network. Pastors, if you aren't using social networking for getting one more touch with people during the week and to reinforce what you taught on Sunday, you are missing out. It's neat to see the message you poured your heart and soul into the week before having more of an impact than just a few minutes on Sunday morning.

I also added a new app for Facebook called Seesmic that sends feed from your friends' Facebook status updates to your desktop. Very cool and makes staying connected with people faster and easier.

After lunch, I had to go to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to pick up some Spandex to use as a screen for our projector in worship. I tweeted about this, which sparked an ongoing conversation between friends and church members (one of them hundreds of miles away) on both Twitter and Facebook, very cool.

Then, a DJ from a local classic rock station contacted me via Twitter to ask if he could get an invitation to come visit our church sometime. That is so cool that it almost made me burst, that a guy out of the blue just contacts me via Twitter because he has been following me and heard about our church and wants to know if he can come. If you don't see the value of social networking, THERE IT IS! Don't know if this guy knows Christ, but he may get to know him BECAUSE OF TWITTER, PEOPLE! Oh, yeah, and I told the guy we'd love for him to come check us out.

Finally, on Facebook I got reconnected with one of my cousins who I haven't seen in a couple of years.

Totally awesome day on social networking.

How to Handle a Financial Crisis

2009-03-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

The audio for How to Handle a Financial Crisis is now up at www.welcometothecrossroads.com. The overarching principle is, get your focus off of money.

The Kings and I

2009-03-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I was pleasantly surprised by NBC's new series Kings. I had heard about the show earlier in the week, and was anxious to see it, although I did not expect much from it.

If you didn't catch it (I really encourage you to go check it out at NBC.com), here's a synopsis. The show is a modern retelling of the biblical stories of Saul and David. The first episode begins with King Silas (Saul) of the Kingdom of Gilboa celebrating the inauguration of the newly rebuilt capital city of Shiloh. The setting looks very much like a shiny new version of a 21st Century American City.

Silas has been waiting for Reverend Samuels (the prophet Samuel), his spiritual advisor, to appear to pray an invocation over the ceremony. Reverend Samuels does not appear, so Silas begins the ceremony without him. He recounts to the gathered multitude how he, a former soldier, had been chosen by God to be the king of the newly formed kingdom. The sign of God's choice of him as king was a flock of butterflies that flew around him and settled on his head like a crown. The crowd goes wild.

In the meantime, Rev. Samuels has been delayed because he is having car trouble. He stops at a rural farm house belonging to a woman named Jesse Shepherd. She lives with her seven sons. Her husband had died fighting in the war of unification (the war in which Silas rose to power). Her youngest son David helps repair the Rev. Samuels's car. Samuels wipes a smudge from David's forehead (anointing?) and gives him his broken gold watch. He calls David the boy who can fix anything.

Two years later, the kingdom is engaged in a war with the kingdom of Gath along the northern border. David and his brothers are soldiers in the army. The Gittites(?) have a technological and firepower advantage with massive tanks known as (you guessed it) Goliaths. Two Gilboans are being held hostage, and David risks life and limb to cross enemy lines and rescue the hostages. In the process, he stands up against and miraculously destroys a Goliath tank. One of the hostages rescued by David happens to be Prince Jack (Jonathan), son of King Silas. Okay, so you kind of get the picture. Silas rewards David with a post in his administration and he rises to prominence.

Now, to my evaluation. The first thing I was delighted and surprised to see was the faithfulness to the main points of the biblical story line. There are a few artistic liberties, and many of these simply relate to converting a three thousand year old story into a 21st century setting. The role of God in the story is not overlooked. In fact, it is even highlighted. Silas clearly believes God has placed him in the position as king, although he certainly takes liberty with that election (Wow, don't we all do that!). Reverend Samuels clearly represents the voice of God. In a line almost directly from Scripture, Samuels tells Silas, "The Lord has rejected you as king. He is going to take your kingdom from you and give it to a man after his own heart." David appears as a young man liked by all who is discovering God's calling for his life.

I also loved the character analysis of King Silas in the program. Silas appears as a man drunk on power who also has delusions related to God's choice of him as king. He has old war wounds that plague him (Saul's headaches?), and a brother-in-law who has a measure of control over him that causes him to make poor decisions and puts tremendous pressure on him (Is this the spirit from the Lord sent to torment Saul?). He has a lover in another town and an illegitimate son by her (possibly the Ishbosheth ("man of shame") who becomes king after Saul and Jonathan's deaths). He sees David as an asset politically, but is enraged by David's relationship with his daughter Michelle (Michal).

There was really only one point in the story that I thought took some liberties with the biblical story, and that is the character of Jack (Jonathan). The program presents Jack as a womanizing, partying, loose cannon who also is a valiant, risk, taking soldier desperately trying to please his father. I'm not sure this is necessarily an accurate portrayal of the biblical Jonathan. However, after rereading the Scripture, I think you could certainly make a case for the fact that Jonathan appears to be an adventurous, independent, young man, perhaps with some sense of entitlement, who shows incredible, albeit, sometimes risky bravery. And maybe that kind of character would also produce a wild lifestyle.

The aspect of Jack's character that is more troubling is that it appears that his womanizing tendencies are actually a cover for the fact that he is a homosexual. Silas berates Jack at one point telling him he knows about what he does with young boys at night and that if he is going to one day be king he will have to learn to control his desires. I do not think the Scripture portrays Jonathan as a homosexual, or the relationship between Jonathan and David as anything other than a deep friendship. I am troubled with what the show may do with the relationship between Jonathan and David. However, I think we need to be honest, the language that the Bible uses for the relationship between Jonathan and David is the most intense languge the Bible ever uses for describing the relationship between two men. I think we should at least be willing to enter into this conversation, to wrestle with the nature of the relationship between Jonathan and David, to be willing to discuss it with people who have questions, and to demonstrate through our relationships with other men what healthy, biblical friendship is all about. You can have a Bromance without it being anything other than deep friendship. So, we'll see where this aspect of the show goes.

If nothing else, Kings has inspired me to study the biblical story of Saul and David with more intensity. I hope that it does the same for other people and gives opportunity for discussions with others about the whole story of God's redemption.

Beautiful and Truly Amazing

2009-03-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

Il Divo performs Amazing Grace in the Colisseum in Rome. As you watch this, just consider the fact that they are performing it in the place where hundreds, maybe thousands, of Christians gave their lives in obedience to and love for their Lord.

Jon Stewart is the voice of reason

2009-03-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

I Hate Church Signs 2

2009-03-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

I think I have just about talked myself out of the billboard idea. Every person I have talked to says effective billboards have to be up for at least six months. That's six months of the same message. What happens if your design idea happens to be one that doesn't really draw people in? Then you are stuck with it for six months.

For the same price, we could do six direct mail pieces utilizing different themes and designs. Additionally, we are doing a movie themed series this summer. I think sending out a direct mail piece with a movie ticket theme would work better anyway.

We still may consider the billboard sometime in the future. For now, we are looking at other marketing ideas as well. Please, let me know what you have seen as the most effective marketing tools in your area.

God Wants You to Have Great Sex

2009-03-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

God gets great glory when we take absolute delight in our sexual lives. That's the premise behind our message series "pillowtalk." The audio for all four weeks of "pillowtalk" are now available for download at www.welcometothecrossroads.com.

This has been an awesome message series that I have really enjoyed. And, the homework is great!

I Hate Church Signs

2009-03-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

What is the most effective means of getting people to know about your church? Obviously the best advertisement for your church is a satisfied customer, when someone from your church takes the time to tell a friend about their church and invites them to come experience your church.

But what else? One of my pet peeves is church signs, the kind that have cutesy little sayings on them that only really make sense to people who have been in the church for twenty plus years. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "What's missing from this ch__ch? UR." Or, my personal favorite, "Hope wishes. Faith omniscies." I have two theology degrees and a couple of years toward a Ph.D. and I'm not sure I understand that one. All that to say, I'm generally opposed to those kinds of church signs. No, I hate them. They are rarely understandable to unchurched people, sometimes are offensive, and often only further the stereotypes that the unchurched have about us.

Yet, today, I found myself considering the possibility of a church sign. Not the cutesy, slogan, cliched type. Just a sign advertising an upcoming message series and channeling people to our website. Since we are a mobile church, we don't have a "presence" that people see throughout the week. A billboard is available in our town, which got me to thinking about the possibility. Still thinking about it.

But, I'm wondering, what is the most effective marketing tool for churches? As I have asked other guys, it seems that direct mail is still the predominant means of getting people at large to know about our churches. We have done several of these at The Crossroads and plan to continue to use them. But even the most effective direct mail pieces get a return of about 1%. That means, if you send out a 5,000 piece mailer, you can expect about 50 people to visit sometime within the next year. Not bad, but certainly not a terribly efficient marketing tool.

It would seem that effectiveness and use among church planters falls off after that with things like billboards, radio, newspaper, and television. All of which are impersonal means of connecting with people.

I spoke with the sales manager from a major car dealership in the DFW Metroplex this afternoon about marketing. He told me that they have had great success with direct mail, followed by billboards. He also said they have used Facebook advertising with some effectiveness.

The golden nugget in this conversation, however, was that they are now discovering that the most effective means of marketing is currently text messaging. Wow! Here's a totally free marketing tool that uses the personal touch of you people and gets the word out in a rapid manner. I'm thinking we can apply this to Facebook and Twitter as well. The most effective marketing tool is one most of your people have in their hands every Sunday morning, their phone. I know I plan to encourage our people this Sunday morning, as soon as church is over, to send out a text to a friend telling about The Crossroads.

Was Jesus Ever Bored?

2009-02-25T15:17:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading The Gospel According to Starbucks by Len Sweet. The book, in a nutshell, is about how much of what we love in the Corporate Java Giant represents the kind of life Jesus expects of his followers. (Okay, that's a vast oversimplification, and Len might not be too happy with that synopsis, but it's the best I got after a day of teaching fourth graders.)

So, there's one line that grabbed me and just keeps coming back to me: "Do you think Jesus ever got bored?" My loud answer is "NO! Of course Jesus never got bored." But what bothers me is what that says about my life. Why do I at times find myself bored? Maybe it's because I don't have the clarity of purpose and personal life mission that Jesus did. Maybe it's because I get myself involved with stuff that isn't worth my time. Maybe I don't always have a razor sharp focus on what my life is about. Maybe I don't listen as carefully to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as Jesus did.

The hardest answer, and maybe the most truthful, is that sometimes I am going through the motions. I am doing all the things I am supposed to be doing. I am working hard, being there for my wife and kids, showing love to other people, but I'm on autopilot, cruise control. And when I fall into that slump, I get bored. No more autopilot, cruise control faith for me. From now on, boredom is a warning signal, a sign that I need to refocus on what God has put me here for. From now on, boredom is a sin for me, and I don't intend to wallow in it for very long.

Speaking the Truth in Fun

2009-02-19T17:46:00.002-08:00

One of the core values at The Crossroads Community Church is fun. Alright, officially, it is, "Do everything with joy." We believe being a follower of Jesus Christ means having "unspeakable joy" and it should be expressed in everything we do. So we have a really good time with each other and in our relationship with God and in serving him and in our weekly worship.

So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.

But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.

But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.

And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.

The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.

The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.

Last.fm

2009-02-19T17:46:00.001-08:00

I've been checking out Last.fm over the last couple of days, and so should you. Basically, it lets you build a radio station that is totally customized exactly to your tastes. You end up with a radio station that only plays the music you like. In addition, it recommends new stuff to you based on your previous musical preferences and constantly updates based on new stuff you are adding to your library. It is totally cool, totally free, and totally tubular, dude! You should get online and spend a few minutes playing around on it.

Pillow Thoughts

2009-02-19T17:46:00.000-08:00

How do you have the amazing, incredible, fulfilling sex life that God wants you to have? That's what my new message series, "Pillow Talk", seeks to address. (You can access the audio for the series here.) This week, the first message in the series was "God Loves Sex" in which I talked about God's plan for sex.

There were two passages of Scripture that I pointed to as foundational for our understanding of sexuality and God's design for sex, both of which come from the first chapter of the Bible. First, Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master.’” Three important priniples from that verse alone: Sex is designed by God. God created man in his image as male and female. Second, in some way, our sexuality is a reflection of the image of God. Sex is a spiritual issue. Third, sex is commanded by God. In fact, it is the first commandment in the Bible, "be fruitful". Yes, I know, it's a command to have children, but where, I ask, do children come from? Sex. Listen to the audio to learn more.

The second foundational Scripture is Genesis 1:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” It's God's design for sex in one verse: leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh. Separating from our past life and past allegiances, separating ourselves in devotion to our spouse, and physically uniting in the beauty of sex.

Okay, so all of that is in the message. Here's what I thought about since then. Both of these passages of Scripture come in the first chapter of the Bible. Both of them precede the Fall. Sex between a husband and wife is one of the most beautiful, purest expressions of our humanity as created in the image of God. Our sexuality is intimately tied to our humanity, to our personality, to our being bearers of the divine image.

So, maybe that's why sexual sin is so destructive to our personhood. Maybe it is why Satan tries so hard to distort the incredible beauty that is sexuality. Maybe that is why impure sex is one of Satan's number one temptations. Maybe that's why God's instruction for dealing with sexual sin is to run away from it. Maybe that is why humans tend to worship sex.

Unspeakable

2009-02-17T15:53:00.001-08:00

Being silent is hard for me. Really hard. I am a people person. I like to connect with new people. I am a church planter, so talking to other people is a pretty vital part of my job. So going for three weeks without speaking at all was a huge blow to me.

Here's the story. In June of last year, I began to experience some hoarseness in my voice. I do speak for a half hour to forty-five minutes every week, so, being hoarse is not something out of the ordinary. However, I put my voice under some additonal strain by doing some singing and preaching. I was also under the stress of getting ready to start planting The Crossroads. Stress causes tightness in the throat, so that created more strain.

I didn't worry about it at first, but a week turned into a month turned into three months. I began to suspect that I probably had a cyst on one of my vocal cords. The same thing had happened four years earlier, and I was pretty sure it felt the same. The solution the previous time had been surgery to remove the cyst, but I was not too anxious to have another surgery. The surgery is quick (like 10 minutes) and simple (if there is such a thing when it comes to surgery), but there is a risk with surgery that I would be left permanently hoarse (not good).

So, I was reluctant to go to the doctor, as in I didn't go to the doctor until December. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and gave me two options: repeat the surgery with the aforementioned risk or go on complete vocal rest for three weeks. I reluctantly chose option B. My enforced silence started the week after Christmas and went halfway through the month of January.

Tough, really tough, and frustrating. Tough trying to communicate everything imperfectly through hand signals, grunts, facial expressions, and writing on a marker board. Tough not being able to join in conversations. Tough not being able to give instruction and direction (being a type A personality). Tough and frustrating being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and "misquoted" even by people who love and care for you. It was so refreshing when someone "got" what I was trying to say and so frustrating when I just had to give up trying to communicate because the conversation had already moved on before I could get out what I was wanting to say or because other people simply could not understand me.

I have been asked by a lot of people what God told me during that time, and here's what I got. One of the weeks of my silence covered a week when we were on a mission trip to Mexico delivering blankets, stuffed animals, and Spanish gospels. Being in a vanload of your friends for a twelve hour drive, going into Mexico as one of the few Spanish speakers, and not being able to talk, that was sheer misery.

The trip was phenomenal, as it always is. The first day in Mexico, I did what I always do. I cried. We took about 700 blankets into a little fishing village on the Gulf Coast. As we distributed them, I came face to face with the reality that always hits me: "It's not enough!" There are so many millions of people who need to know about Christ. There are so many hurting, hungry, cold, impoverished people. We as Americans are so blessed. And it's not enough. For the 700 people whose lives we blessed and with whom we were able to share something of Christ's message, there are millions more who need to feel his love and hear his message. It's just not enough.

Okay, okay. So, here's what I learned. The church is the body of Christ, and the vocal cords are getting strained. For too long we have relied on "career missionaries" to get the job done. We send them money every once in a while, we pray for them, we may send them cards and letters. But we have placed the full responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth on a tiny segment of the church. As a result, the voice of the church is often silenced, and maybe it has even become sick.

How can you see this? USAmerica is now the third largest mission field in the world. Our voice has been silenced even on our "home court." Our voice is no longer being heard. We do not have the strength to proclaim to the world, much less our own nation, the message of Jesus Christ. Why? In part because we have relied almost exclusively on the vocal cords of the church (missionaries, pastors, evangelists) to communicate the message. And that's not the way God designed the body.

You see, there is far more to communication than just the vocal cords. I learned from my doctor that I have to take better care of my voice by doing more than just pushing my vocal cords harder. Effective speach requires much more of the body. Good projection depends on the abdominal muscles, the lungs, lung capacity, breathing techniques, the mouth, the tongue, even what you eat or drink and when you eat or drink. Effective communication also requires more than just the voice. Facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, all of these things are vital for effective communication. In short, the whole body must be involved to effectively communicate.

We need the whole body of Christ to be involved in sharing the message of Christ if we ever hope to "do enough" to reach the world for Christ. We need everyone to be involved at home and around the world in loving people, touching people, and sharing God's message with other people. I wonder if God sometimes feels frustrated that he has the most incredible message in the world for the world, but his voice is weak because his people are not carrying that message to all the world.

In Christ, we have been given "unspeakable joy" (1 Pet. 3:8), but that doesn't mean we don't speak about it.

The Crossroads Messages on Website

2009-02-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

Audio for messages from The Crossroads Community Church are now available at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/content.cfm?id=213. Check out our current message series "Pillow Talk."

Faith on the Football Field

2009-02-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

I've posted a link to Rick Reilly's column about the football game between the Grapevine Faith Christian School and the Gainesville State School. Now, here's the video. Get your tissues ready. This is what it means to be salt and light.

How to Have the Time of Your Life

2009-02-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

If I asked you what you would like to have more of in your life, what would you say? One of the things we did and are continuing to do as we start The Crossroads is we are doing surveys throughout the community asking people four questions: What are your top three favorite radio stations? What do you think are the three greatest needs of the community of Anna? Why do you think most people don’t attend church? And if you were looking for a church for you and you’re your family to attend, what three things would you be looking for? And question number three, why do you think most people don’t attend church, what do you think is the number one answer we have received for that question? Time. They don’t have enough time.

You know, time is a non-renewable resource. Once you’ve used it up, it’s gone. Every one of us, from the moment we are born, have a certain amount of time on earth, and you can’t get any more of it. And so, one of the most important things you can do with your life is figure out how to make the most of your time. Did you know, if you are the average person, you will spend two years of your life trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there? You will spend six moths waiting for the traffic light to turn green, eight months reading junk mail, and five months tying your shoes. You will spend three years waiting for somebody, five years getting dressed, and six years eating. You will spend twenty years working, twenty years sleeping, and nearly eighteen years in front of a television set. Your time is your life, and however you spend your time is how you spend your life.

Let me ask you this, if somebody told you that at the beginning of each day, they were going to give you $86,400, but at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend was going to be taken away from you, what would you do? You’d try pretty hard to spend that money, right? Well, each of us, at the beginning of each day, are given 86,400 seconds, and when the day is over, they’re gone, and you don’t get them back. So, one of the most important things you can do is figure out how to use the time in your life. Read with me Ephesians 5:15-16: “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God doesn’t want you to waste your time. He wants to use you to make a difference, to impact other people, to fulfill his purposes for your life.

But there are a thousand different things that war for control of your time. Getting to work, getting the laundry done, getting the kids to school, washing the car, mowing the yard, shopping for groceries. One of the greatest tools that Satan has that he uses against you is busyness. Because if he can keep you busy, if he can use up all your time, then you don't have time left to do the things that God wants you to do. So, I want to offer you today five biblical principles for how you can have the time of your life.
The first one is pray. You will multiply the time you have in your life if you dedicate time to prayer. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, once said, “I have so many things to do today that I have to spend an extra hour in prayer just to get them all done.” Now, that’s contrary to the way a lot of people think. A lot of people say, “I don’t have time for prayer, I don’t have time for a quiet time, I don’t have time to spend with God, I don’t have time for church because I have too many things going on in my life.” Luther understood that he had no hope of getting all the things done in his life without God’s help.

Maybe the reason so much of the time we don’t get things done and we don’t have time in our life for God is because we are trying to live our lives without God. And as a result, we have to work harder and struggle more to get things done.

I’m pretty sure Jesus had the most important responsibilities that any human being has ever had. He had three and a half years to take a group of teenage fishermen, a tax collector, a former terrorist, and turn them into a force that would change the world and start the church. He had sick people to heal, give sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, and raise people from the dead. And he had to give his life on the cross for the sins of man. But, I want you to look at what Jesus did at the height of his popularity. Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” The more the crowds were demanding his time, the more time Jesus spent getting away to pray.

So, how does prayer, spending more time in prayer, give you more time in your life? Spending time in prayer gives you two things. It gives you power. If you devote your schedule to God and you ask for God’s blessing on the things you have to do today, suddenly you aren’t trying to do everything in your own strength. You have the power of God to do the things in your day. When you ask God to bless your day, suddenly problems that you couldn’t work out just seem to work themselves out, people who were wasting your time now become helpers in getting things done, computers that weren’t working right run fine, traffic goes your way. Prayer opens up the power of God in your life to get things done. It’s like my weedeater. When I was a kid, my dad trimmed the yard with a little pair of metal shears, and it took him forever. But w/ my weedeater, I can do all the trimming in our yard in about 30 minutes. Greater power gets things done faster.

Then prayer also provides clarity. It helps me to look at the things on my to do list and understand what really needs doing. Look at Ephesians 5 again, and look at the next verse, verse seventeen. “Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:15-17). How do you find out what the Lord wants you to do? You pray. Prayer helps you to figure out what the Lord wants you to do. A lot of the reason why we don’t have the time of our lives is we are trying to do things that God never intended for us to do. Prayer helps you figure out what you are supposed to do.

The second way to have the time of your life is prioritize. You need to be able to look at your life and your schedule and figure out what’s really important, because not all things are of equal value. Some things are more important than others. Look at Philippians 1:10: “I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.” What really matters? One of my most important responsibilities as pastor is helping you to figure out what really matters in life.

Now, I’ll just tip my hand to you, the most important thing in life is your relationship with God and living for his purposes in your life. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Mt. 6:32-33). If you will orient your life around God and his purposes for your life, then everything else will make a whole lot more sense. Did you ever play with a Rubick’s cube? Did you ever throw one against the wall? I am told that the secret to solving a Rubick's cube is in knowing that the center squares never move, and every other piece has to be oriented to the center. And that’s true with life. You put Christ at the center, and all the other things in your life will make a whole lot more sense.

So, let me give you a very quick and basic list of biblical priorities for life. #1 God and your relationship with him, #2 your family, spouse then kids then parents. #3 God’s purposes for your life, celebrating God’s presence in worship, connecting with God’s family in fellowship, growing as God’s people in discipleship, showing God’s love in ministry, and sharing God’s message in evangelism. And really, the first three should prioritize everything else in your life. After that comes work and getting the house clean and making it to soccer practice and all the other stuff in life. Now, the truth of the matter is, for most of us, myself included, the things that take the most of our time are things that come lower on the list. The trick is, to be used by God, to give priority to the things that come high on the list.

So, you’ve got to prioritize. And you’ve got to prioritize in two ways. Prioritize life as a whole, and prioritize your schedule for each day.

And that really leads to the third thing which is plan. You’ve got to have a plan for what you are going to do with life. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to see happen? How are you going to make that happen? The Bible uses the example of ants, Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” In other words, to get things done, you have to have foresight. You have to be able to look ahead, make a plan and follow through on it. Look at Proverbs 21:5: “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” You need to plan. There’s a popular saying: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

Now, what does planning mean. It just means you look at what you want to accomplish and you figure out, what are the things that need to happen for me to accomplish that? So, you need to plan for your year, your month, your week, and especially your day. What do I want to get done today? Now, how am I going to get those things done.

But let me give you this warning. The Bible is very clear that you have to include God in your planning and that if you don’t you are asking for disaster. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has his life all planned out and has his retirement accounts in order and plenty of money and security, and he says to himself, "I've got it made. I can sit back and enjoy all my wealth and security." And God says to him, "You fool. This night your life is required of you. And God takes his life. You have to consider God's plan in your planning. Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” So, this goes back to the first one. You plan with prayer. You seek God’s plans for your life. Planning is not about saying, “This is what I want to do.” It’s about saying, “God what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it.”

And here’s how planning helps your time. You plan with a schedule. You devote certain segments of time to certain tasks. So, you plan.

Now, the next one is one I’m bad at, and that is don’t procrastinate. Procrastination will kill your time, because stuff starts backing up on you. I learned this in college. If you don’t get started on papers when they are assigned, they all come due at the same time, and you are swamped. If you are a procrastinator, let me give you a verse, Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” Don’t put things off, don’t wait for perfect conditions. Now, do you know what kinds of things we tend to put off doing? Things that we don’t like doing or that are going to be uncomfortable, distasteful, or unpleasant. Now, let me let you in on a life secret: The things that we put off doing because they are unpleasant will not be more pleasant a week from now. In fact, they will probably be more unpleasant. Case in point: cleaning the refrigerator. What happens the longer you put off cleaning the refrigerator? It grows more mold and requires more work and more time.

There is a direct proportionality to the things we put off doing and how long it takes to do them. In other words, the longer you put something off, the longer it will take to do it. Whatever needs doing, don’t wait for perfect conditions, don’t wait until you feel like it. Do it now. Proverbs 6:10-11 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Procrastination is a robber. It robs you of time, it robs your of spending time with your family, it robs you of finances, it robs you of peace of mind. Don’t procrastinate.

If you want to have the time of your life, pray, prioritize, plan, don’t procrastinate, and then this is the fun one, play. Play. Now this one seems counterintuitive. If you want to have the time of your life and make the most of your time, how can you take time to play. But it’s true. You need some margin in your life. You don’t need every minute scheduled with things to do. And I can demonstrate this biblically. God commands you to take one day out of seven where you don’t work, where you stop what you are doing. It’s called a Sabbath, and Sabbath literally means to stop. God is so serious about you having some margin in your life that he commands that you take a day off for worship and for rest. Now, I want to focus on the rest part. Three things you need from a good day of rest: relaxation, relationships, and recreation. Relaxation. You need time to rest. It's okay to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. In fact, for some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do right now is take a nap. You need to be rested to be used by God. Relationships. You need to spend time with other people. Recreation. Have fun. Play. Enjoy yourself.

You see, here’s the thing, God wants to use you to do incredible things in life. God wants you to use your time to make a difference and change the world and live out his purposes for your life and he wants you to have fun doing it. God doesn’t intend for you to live your life so stressed out that you can’t enjoy it. 1 Timothy 6:17: “Their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” The Bible says two incredible things. God has created all things for his glory, and he has given all things for our enjoyment. The two are not mutually exclusive. God receives glory when we take delight in the the things he has created. You need to intentionally schedule margin in your life, schedule fun, schedule recreation. And I have discovered that you have to be intentional about it or other things will eat up your down time. Look at what Jesus said in Jn. 10:10: “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Now, Jesus did not mean a full schedule. Jesus wants you to experience a fulfilling, meaningful, blessed life. He wants you to experience life the way he designed for you to have it.

I heard about a man one time who computed how many Saturdays he had left in his life. He had about 1,000. So, he went to the store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a jar. And every Saturday he would take out a marble as a reminder to him not to waste the Saturdays that he had left in his life. So, let me ask you, what are you doing with the marbles you have left in life? Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). Time is limited. Jesus is coming back soon. So, what are you giving your life for? What are you using your time for? Are you using your time in the best possible way?

It's Time for Change

2009-02-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

This week was an incredibly historic week in the life of the United States of America. We have inaugurated our first African American president as the 44th President. It’s a time of incredible change, as President Obama campaigned for. So, we stand today at the beginning of a new year, a new presidency, a new era in American history. It’s also a time of a lot of uncertainty. The economy is in horrible shape. The housing market has fallen apart. We are in the midst of an ongoing war against terrorism. President Obama has a daunting task ahead of him. And he has lots of plans and hopes and dreams about what is going to happen in the future. A lot of people have plans for things they would like to see happen in the new year and this new presidency.

But how many of us, as we consider change and new things think about what new thing God wants to do in our lives? What are God’s plans for us? You see, the Bible teaches us that God never changes, James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows," and Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God never changes. With all the change in the world, He is always the same. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want to change your life. The Bible also teaches that He is constantly doing something new in the world, constantly working to bring about the new, constantly working to do something different in our lives.

You see, God wants us to be like Him, and so what God is about in our lives is constantly working to bring about change in our lives to make us more and more like Him. In fact, God’s plan for all of history is about doing something new in the world. Look at Revelation 21:5: “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” God’s plan for all of human history is to radically and completely make all things new, a total transformation of people and the universe and government and our relationships to him and to each other.

So, as we look at a new year and a new presidency and a new era, and all the expectations we have for it, all the plans we have, all the resolutions we are making, all the unknowns that are still in store, we need to remember that God is in control and that God is working out his plans and his goals and his resolutions for our lives. Isaiah 42:9 says, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” God says, “Look, everything I have said would happen in the past has happened, and everything that I say is going to happen will happen.” God already knows what this year holds for you. He already knows what he wants to do in your life. We don’t know what the new year may hold, but God does, and he has some incredible new things that he wants to do in your life this year.

So, today I want you to think about what are the changes that God wants to do in your life, and how to respond to that change. We are going to look at four areas where God may want to bring about a change in your life, and four ways that you can respond to the new thing that God is doing. Now, the first area is a change in circumstances. In the new year, God may have some new circumstances in store for you, something new in your job, you get a new boss, you receive a cut in pay or a raise in pay, transfer to a new location, you lose an important account or you gain a new one. There’s a decent chance that you may lose your job. It can be a new relationship with people, your kids going away to college, you gain some new friends or an old friend moves away, you have a new baby, your spouse passes away. It can be a change in your health. There are any number of changes in circumstances that can happen in a year’s time. Someone you love dies, you buy a new car, your bills go up. In fact, I can almost guarantee that in a year’s time there will be some significant change in your circumstances in some area of your life.

Now, here’s the thing, most of us don’t like change. We try to avoid new circumstances because they produce uncertainty in our lives. But the great thing about new circumstances is that they almost always represent new ways that God is working in our lives and new opportunities for us to grow. Look at Isaiah 43:18-19:
“The Lord says, ‘Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don't you see it? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.’”

God says, “Stop looking at the past and focus on what I’m doing right now! I’m doing something new and amazing, something that you have never seen before, and it is an opportunity for you to see me work in a way you’ve never seen me work before.” God doesn’t want us stuck in the past. He doesn’t want us to get hung up on what has happened before or how he worked in our lives before or even what he did just last year. God wants us focusing on the new thing he is doing in our lives right now. When God does something new, it is an opportunity for us to make the most of the life God has given to us.

So, how do you respond to new circumstances in your life? You trust God. You depend on the fact that no matter what new thing may happen in your circumstances this year, God is still in control. Your life is working out according to the purpose and plan of God. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you can be assured that there is absolutely nothing that comes into your life that God either hasn’t caused to happen or allowed to happen. So, there’s a purpose in everything that happens in your life. So you trust God. In Matthew 6:31-34, Jesus says:
“So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing… Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Jesus says, “If you live your life in dependence on me, then I will take care of all the circumstances of your life.” There is no circumstance in your life that Jesus cannot provide for.

So, the first change that God may bring in your life this year is a change in circumstances. Then, the second change that God may bring about is a change in character. Not only may God change the external circumstances of your life, but God may want to do something new on the inside in your life. God may want to do something new in you. It may be a sin that he wants to get rid of, an attitude that he wants to change, a broken relationship that he wants you to restore, or a habit that he wants you to break.

Becoming a Christian is about our character being changed into the character of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:22-24:
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Being a Christian is about continually, constantly being transformed, being changed to be more and more like Jesus Christ, and it is a never-ending process. Until the day you die, as a follower of Jesus Christ, God is going to be doing something new in your character. In this passage, Paul uses the picture of taking off an old set of clothes and putting on a new set. For Christmas, I got several sets of new clothes. Now, one of the things I have to do is get rid of some of the old clothes to make room for the new. Our kids got a lot of new stuff for Christmas, and yesterday they went through their old toys and got rid of some of them to make room for the new stuff. Now, that was a painful process for them. There were some things that they didn’t want to get rid of, but they were things that they didn’t really need and things that weren’t good anymore, and they needed to be discarded. And that’s the same thing that happens with our character. God has some things that he wants to change in our lives, some new aspects of our character, some ways that he wants us to be more like Jesus, but he also wants us to get rid of some things.

God is going to be working on your character this year, teaching you something new, growing your faith, developing your love for others, giving you peace of mind, growing your patience, giving you a greater sense of joy in the middle of trials, helping you to learn to be kind toward unkind people, turning you into a giver instead of a taker in life. There are all kinds of new aspects of character that God wants to work in your life this year.

So, how do you respond to the new character that God wants to bring about in your life? You submit to God. You just say, “God, here’s my life, and if there’s anything you want to do in my life this year, if there’s something you want to work on, if there’s an aspect of my character that you want to change, then I fully submit to whatever you want to do.” Look at Isaiah 64:8: “O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” What does clay do in the hands of the potter? It just gets molded into whatever the potter wants to fashion it into. It doesn’t resist. It just yields to whatever the potter wants to do with it. That’s what it means to submit to God. I want to challenge you this morning to say to God, “God, this year, I want to be clay in your hands. I submit my life and my character to you to be formed into the kind of person you want me to be.”

So, a change in circumstances, a change in character, then, third, a change in calling. God may have a new assignment for you in the new year, a new thing that he wants you to do in service to him. God may be saying, “I’ve got something new that I want you to do for me.” God may have a new ministry that he wants you to be a part of. God may be calling you to be involved in something that takes you outside your comfort zone. God may be calling you to full-time service for him. Look at what happened when Jesus called the disciples: “Jesus replied to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!’ And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus” (Lk. 5:10-11). They left everything and followed him. Following Jesus meant something radically new and different for the disciples, but they left it all to be with him.

Some of you, God is calling you into the ministry, and you’ve wrestled with him for a long time, and you have had arguments with him over this, and you’ve given him all the excuses, but God still keeps telling you that he wants you to give your life full time to serving him. Some of you, God is calling you to missions, to go tell the story of Jesus to other people in other parts of the world, and it scares you to death, but God keeps calling. Some of you, God is calling you to be more involved in evangelism this year, telling your family and friends and coworkers and neighbors about Jesus. Some of you, God is calling you to lead a ministry, to start a new ministry here in the church, to teach a bible study. God is calling you. And you know it, and you’ve heard his call, but you’ve been reluctant.

So, what do you do when God is calling you to something new? You answer the call. You do what Isaiah did in Isa. 6:8: “Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, ‘Whom can I send? Who will go for us?’ So I said, ‘Here I am. Send me!’” Now, do you know what most of us do when confronted with a calling like Isaiah? We say, “There he is. Send him!” or “There she is. Send her!” When we sense the call of God in our lives, we say, “God you missed. You meant the person next to me and you hit me by accident!” Answering the call means saying, “God, I hear you, and I am ready to do whatever you ask me to do!”

Listen to me, I know it’s a scary thing when God calls you to do something. Why? Because God always calls us to do things that we can’t do on our own and in our own strength. God always calls us to do God-sized tasks that only he can do and that require his strength and his power and his ability, and if he doesn’t show up we will fall flat on our faces and fail. And that scares us to death.

But let me tell you as someone who has been there, someone who is there right now in my life, there is nothing any more exciting in life than following God wherever he leads. When you finally let go and you say, “Okay, God, if you ask me to do something, my answer, in advance is I’m available, wherever, whenever, whatever, however,” there is no greater sensation in life, no greater freedom in life than that moment when you let go and let God have control. Answer the call.

So God may want to change your circumstances. He may want to change your character. He may have a change in calling for you to follow. Or he may want to change you. Some of you here today have never experienced the new life that God has to offer through Jesus Christ. And maybe you are here today because you want a change in your life. Maybe you want to have a new start in life. Maybe you want to do some things differently. Maybe you feel like you have messed up in life and you want to be able to start over again. Well, the greatest news that has ever been told is that you can have a brand new life in Jesus Christ. “When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17). You can have a new life. You can have a new start. God can make you brand new. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter how bad the stuff is you’ve done. You can have a brand new life. Now what exactly does that brand new life involve. Well, first, it means forgiveness for your past. Every bad thing you’ve ever done, every person you’ve ever hurt, every sin you’ve ever committed, every hurtful thing you’ve ever said, every relationship you’ve broken, every bad thought you’ve ever had, it can all be wiped away. That’s forgiveness. You can have forgiveness for your past. You can have purpose for your present. You can have something to live for. You can have a life full of joy and peace and hope. You can live a life that makes a difference that impacts other people and that changes the world by following Jesus Christ. You can have forgiveness for your past, purpose for your present, and the promise of eternal life for your future. You can know that if you died today that you would spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ.

Now, how do you get all that? How do you have a new you? Very simply, you accept Jesus Christ. Now, how do you accept Jesus Christ? John 1:12 tells us. “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” You believe and receive. You believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, that when Jesus died on the cross, he died in your place, and that he rose again to overcome death and the grave so you could have eternal life. You believe, and then you receive. You receive Jesus as the leader of your life. You say, “Jesus, I’ve tried living life my way, and it hasn’t worked out so well. From now on, I want you to be the leader of my life.”

God wants to do something new in your life this year. God is all about doing something new. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3). God wants to do something new in your life, and as you allow him to do so and as he works in your life and you praise him for the new thing he is doing, he will use that to impact other people’s lives as well. Nine times in the Bible it talks about God putting a new song in the hearts of his people. I love the last time, in the book of Revelation it says that they sang a new song before the throne of God and no one could learn it except those who had been redeemed from the earth. Through the things that he is doing in your life, God is writing a new song of praise that only you can sing, because you are the only one who has experienced him in that way. What is the new thing that God wants to do in your life this year?

Stand By Me

2009-01-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm the only one in the world who hasn't seen this yet, but this is an amazing video.

Get Ready to Cry

2009-01-29T07:18:00.000-08:00

If you haven't checked out Rick Reilly's story yet about the football game between Grapevine's Faith Christian School and Gainesville State School, you should read it now and have a tissue handy.

Real Jesus - Part 4: Christian Jesus

2009-01-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

The following is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Real Jesus" by Pastor Shawn Kemp.

Today as we finish out our series "Real Jesus". We’ve been looking at some of the popular images of Jesus that are out there and comparing those images with the real Jesus. And why have we been doing this? Because your understanding of who Jesus is impacts your whole life. Jesus once confronted his disciples with the question of who he was:

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’” Matthew 16:13-15

Who do you say that I am? It’s a really important question. So, we started out by looking at “Jesus Is My Homeboy: Jesus in pop culture”. Then we looked at Santa Claus Jesus. Last week we looked at Sweet Little Baby Jesus in a Manger. Now, this week, we look at our last image of Jesus, and this one hits a little closer to home, because this one is Christian Jesus.

You see, as Christians there are images and ideas that we have about Jesus, and some of them are correct and some of them aren’t. But before we go any farther, let me say, I’m not out to bash other Christians. I’m like Paul, who said in Philippians 1:18: “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” My goal, today, is simply to point out some dangers that we need to avoid in our understanding of Jesus. Now, we don’t have time today to look at every image and idea about Jesus that is out there among Christians. So, today, we are going to look at one particular image of Jesus that is very common among Christians and that is an easy trap to fall into. And, maybe a better name for this image of Jesus than Christian Jesus is Religious Jesus.

During Jesus’ time here on earth, his biggest confrontations, the people he had the harshest confrontations with, the people who ultimately condemned him to death were religious people, the people who were the religious leaders of the Jewish people. They were called the Pharisees, and Jesus’ biggest battles here on earth were with them. Now, here’s the thing, even as followers of Jesus Christ, we can have a tendency to become Pharisees, to see Jesus as someone who came to start a religion rather than as coming to change the world and free us from sin and self and self-righteousness and religion.

So, let’s take a look at some wrong ideas about following Jesus. And all of these come from Matthew 23, one of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees. So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. According to this idea, the goal of being a Christian is attaining more knowledge, studying more, knowing all the intricate details and minutiae of the Christian faith.

The Pharisees had this kind of attitude about religion. In fact, many of the Pharisees were what was known as scribes. They were the experts at religious law. They were lawyers for religion. Doesn't that just sound warm and friendly? And they had the rules memorized. They knew all the interpretations of religious law. They studied what other people had to say about the Bible and could quote them at random. They spent hours and hours in Bible study, in classes, with their nose in a scroll. Look at what Jesus said about the Pharisees:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” Matthew 23:2-4

Jesus encouraged the people to listen to what the teachers of religious law had to say. The problem was their studying of the law did not produce a change in their lives. They tied up heavy burdens on people. The Pharisees had spelled out over 600 laws that people were to observe. And the Pharisees taught that knowing Scripture took precedence over obeying it. So, studying Scripture was the most important thing.

The problem is that study does not have the power to produce a changed life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe there is tremendous value and importance to studying the Bible. I mean, I spent eight and a half years after I got out of high school in college and grad school studying the Bible. I spend hours each week studying and preparing for the message. The problem is when studying becomes a substitute for living out the teachings of Scripture. Some people know an awful lot about the Bible, but it doesn’t impact the way they live their lives. They are like the person described in 1 Corinthians 13:2: “If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be?” The value of your study is demonstrated in the impact it makes on the way you live your life.

You see, you can study and not let it impact your life. There are a lot of things I studied throughout my years of school that have little impact on the way I live my life. There are a lot of things that I learned to take a test, and I aced the test and had a 4.34 gpa when I graduated from high school, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about some of those things today. It's like Sam Cooke’s song “A Wonderful World” says, “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French I took, but I do know that I love you, and I know that if you love me, too, what a wonderful world it would be.”

You see, knowledge alone is not enough. It has to impact the way you live your life. Look at James 1:22: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Here’s what can happen. You can use studying as a way of covering up for the fact that your life is not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. "Well, I’ve got this one area of my life that I’m ashamed of, that is a dark secret, that I don’t want anybody to know about, so I’ll cover it up by acting super religious and really studying the Bible."

But the problem is that knowledge by itself produces arrogance. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Corinthians 8:1-3). Studying without application, without love in your life, causes you to think you are better than everybody else. In your Christian life, inspiration without application leads to constipation. Let me be really honest with you, the last thing a lot of Christians need is another Bible study. They’ve already got so much knowledge that they are about to pop. What they need is to get plugged in to a ministry team, go on a mission trip, serve our community, do something with what they know, apply it to their lives.

It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about a relationship. It’s about knowing God and being known by God. It’s about falling more and more in love with him. It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about knowing the God who gave the rules, understanding his heart, and living and loving the kind of life he wants us as followers of Christ to live. The goal of study is not knowledge. The goal is to become just like Christ.

So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. Then, the second wrong idea is that following Jesus is about appearances. This one is a little different from the first one. Whereas the first one says knowing the rules is what is really important, the second one says it’s all about what’s on the outside, what other people see, your appearance that really counts. One of the dangers as a Christian is that you think that what Jesus is concerned about is just making you a good person. Or you think, as long as I am good on the outside, nobody will know about what’s wrong on the inside. Or as long as I’m good around certain people, as long as I’m a good person on certain days of the week, as long as I keep up the illusion that I’m a good Christian, then I’m okay.

Well, take a look at what Jesus says about the Pharisees. “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long” (Matthew 23:5). Everything they do is done for men to see. There are a lot of different variations on this one. There are religious profiteers, pastors who are using Christianity as a way to make money. So, they preach good sermons, and they look nice, and they treat people kindly. But it’s all with impure motives. It’s all to gain monetarily for themselves. Then there are people who use Christianity to gain standing with other people, to increase their business contacts. Then there are people who just want a pat on the back. They want other people to tell them about how good they are and what a wonderful person they are.

The problem with all of these motivations for “being good” is that they only go skin deep. It’s kind of like the way I used to clean my room when I was a kid. My brother and I shared a room together, two teenage boys, so you can imagine. My mom didn’t even dare try to go in there very often. But every once in a while, she would decide that we had to clean our room. So, we would go through and shove stuff in the closet and under the bed and on shelves, just enough to get Mom off our case. One day later, it’s back to the same or worse condition than what it was in. It wasn’t really clean. It just looked that way with a casual glance. It’s like what Jesus said about the Pharisees:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:25-28

You see, Jesus wants more than just Bible study, head knowledge, and he wants more than just outward obedience. He wants your heart. Again, this really is about following Jesus, loving him, developing a relationship with him, and allowing him to change you from the inside out.

So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. The second one is that following Jesus is about appearances. Then, the final wrong idea is that following Jesus is about me. And this is a really common idea, that following Jesus is about my comfort and my wants and desires and my pleasure and achieving my goals and my fame. It comes out in the idea that church should be about making me comfortable. It comes out when people feel like they aren’t getting patted on the back enough. It comes out when we feel like life is not going our way.

And that’s the attitude that many of the Pharisees had. In the end, their religion was about making them look good, achieving fame for themselves, getting glory for them.

“They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'” Matthew 23:6-7).

"Beware of these teachers of religious law! For they love to parade in flowing robes and to have everyone bow to them as they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and at banquets. But they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property, and then, to cover up the kind of people they really are, they make long prayers in public. Because of this, their punishment will be the greater." Mark 12:38-40 (NLT)

The notion here is that the point of Christianity is to make much of me, to glorify me, to exalt me. And nothing could be further from the truth. The point is it’s all about God. It’s not about me. Following Christ is about making much of Christ and little of me. It’s all about giving God all the glory and honor and fame. And there are two ways you can do that. First, by serving other people. A priority in the kingdom of God is not status, but service, giving myself away for other people. Jesus says, in Matthew 23:11-12, “The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” God’s system works completely different from the way the world’s system works. In God’s system, the leaders are the servants, the greatest are those who give themselves away, those who will be promoted are those who intentionally debase themselves for the sake of others.

Then, the second way you give God all the glory is by pointing other people to him. Lk. 5:31-32: “Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” When I start thinking the point of following Jesus is all about me, then I have completely missed the point. When I start thinking the focus of my Christian life and the church and my relationships with other people is about me and my comfort and my needs and desires, I have lost sight of what Jesus’ whole purpose was about. He came to call sinners. The best way for me to take the focus off of me is by pointing other people to Jesus. Go on a mission trip, help us hand out hot chocolate at the Christmas parade, help us give away breakfast to commuters, develop a relationship with a friend at work and invite them to The Crossroads, tell them your story of life in Jesus. Point other people to Jesus.

So many people settle for a substitute Jesus, a Jesus who just doesn’t measure up to the real thing. You can receive the real Jesus today.

Chase the Lion - Part 7: Looking Foolish

2009-01-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab's mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with it.”

Benaiah was one of David’s mighty men, his elite forces. There are three instances recorded in 2 Samuel 23 about Benaiah’s life. He faced off against two mighty Moabite warriors, he took on a giant Egyptian who had a spear with only a club, and one snowy day, he chased a lion into a pit and killed it. And as a result of all those feats of strength and courage and daring, he eventually becomes captain of David’s bodyguard, and eventually commander of all the army of Israel.

But I want you to imagine, what if Benaiah had encountered the lion, chased the lion, the lion falls in a pit, Benaiah jumps in after him, and the lion kills him. What would everybody have thought? Would he have been remembered as a valiant warrior? Would he have been considered a mighty man? No. He would have been thought a fool. His tombstone would have said, “Here lies Benaiah, a complete idiot.”

But, you know, I believe deep down inside every follower of Jesus Christ, there is a primal desire to do something crazy for God. We want to chase a lion like Benaiah. But our fear of looking foolish keeps us from attempting some amazing things for God.

Poll after poll shows that most people’s number one fear is the fear of speaking in public. Death ranks number two. That means there are a lot of people who would rather die than speak in public. Why? It’s the fear of looking foolish.

But, the willingness to look foolish is one of the key facets of faith. Throughout history, the people who God uses most are the people who are willing to look the most foolish. Noah looked foolish building a giant boat in the middle of the desert where it had never rained and nobody even knew what rain was. Sarah looked foolish buying maternity clothes when she was 90 years old. The Israelites looked foolish when they laid siege to the fortified city of Jericho by marching around it and blowing on trumpets. David looked foolish as a teenage boy attacking a giant with a sling shot and a stone. Benaiah looked foolish chasing a lion. The wise men looked foolish following a star for thousands of miles to find a baby. Peter looked foolish stepping out of a boat in the middle of a lake. And Jesus looked foolish hanging half-naked on a cross dying for the very people who were executing him.

But Noah was saved from the flood. Sarah gave birth to Isaac. The walls of Jericho came crashing down. David killed Goliath. Benaiah killed the lion. The wise men found the Messiah. Peter walked on water. And Jesus rose from the dead. Do you know why so many of us haven’t killed a giant or walked on water or seen the walls come tumbling down? Because we aren’t willing to look foolish.

Now, today, I want to show you two hindrances that you have to let go of to be able to embrace looking foolish for God, or how to look foolish. Now, look, it’s easy to look foolish. Literally, any idiot can look foolish. The key is, being willing to look foolish for God so that you can embrace the life God has for you. You see, following God’s purpose and plan and God’s will for your life will often look foolish to other people. Look at what 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.” God delights in using things that look foolish from a human perspective, because when he does amazing things through foolish things, two things happen: he gets the glory, and human wisdom gets confounded.

So, let’s take a look at how to look foolish, two hindrances to you being willing to look foolish for God. First, you have to let go of the need to conform. The need to fit in, the need to be like everybody else, the need to do what everybody else is doing, the need to go with the flow, to follow the crowd. The refusal to stand out from the crowd. We are often hindered from our ability to chase lions that God puts in our path and embrace the life that God has for us, because we don’t want to be different. We don’t want to stand out from the crowd.

The essence of Jesus’ teaching here on earth is the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon Jesus preached one day on a hillside by the Sea of Galilee. And, kind of the theme verse for the sermon on the mount is Mt. 6:8: “Do not be like them.” Jesus wants us to be non-conformists. Don’t do what everybody else is doing just because everybody else is doing it. Don’t think or act or be like everybody else.

There’s this thing educators call divergent thinking. And divergent thinking is intellectual originality. It is creativity and counterintuitive thought. It is creative thinking. It’s seeing things from a different perspective, doing things your own way. Between the ages of three and five, ninety-eight percent of children score in genius category for divergent thinking. Between the ages of eight and ten, the percentage drops to thirty-two percent. By the time they are teenagers it drops to ten percent, and after age twenty-five, only two percent of us score in the genius category for divergent thinking. Gradually, we are taught and pressured and trained to be like everybody else and think like everybody else and act like everybody else.

But I think divergent thinking, divergent spirituality is one of the keys to spiritual maturity. Rom. 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We are supposed to proactively resist conforming. And not just that, we are supposed to be transformed, continually being reshaped and refashioned. And, we are supposed to be tranformers ("more than meets the eye"). We are supposed to actively bring about transformation in the world around us.

Somewhere along the way, I think we may have missed the point. Christians are supposed to be non-conformists. Yet, somehow, Christians have become the most conforming group in our society. We look the same, act the same, talk the same, vote the same. We are the most conservative people in our nation. But we are supposed to be the change agents. We should be dangerous to be around.

Hello, have you read the Bible? God tells Ezekiel to cook his food over dung for a year. He tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. He speaks to Balaam through a donkey. One time, just for kicks, he afflicts the Philistines with a plague of hemorrhoids. His Son was born in a barn. None of that is normal. But here’s what I’ve learned. There’s no such thing as normal. As soon as we get over our need to conform to whatever normal is, we will be much freer to do what God has called us to do with our lives.

Look at John 8:36: “So if the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.” As Christians, we should be the freest people in the world to be the person God has called us to be. To stop trying to be like everybody else, and be the person God has called us to be. I believe Christians should be the most creative people in the world. I believe we should be the best artists, the best musicians, the best writers, the best scientists, the best thinkers the world has ever known, because we are free to be who we really are. When you have experienced the freedom that comes from knowing Christ, then you don’t worry about looking foolish.

Then, the second thing you have to do to look foolish is let go of pride. You see, another reason we are afraid to look foolish is because we are afraid of what other people will think of us. We have to let go of the need to be cool, the need to be accepted, the need to be popular. We have to let go of ego, let go of self. When you are more worried about your self-image than pleasing God, you can’t be used by God. In fact, when you begin to exalt yourself over God in your life, it won’t be long before God does something to humble you. “God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6). When you try to protect your own ego at the expense of what God wants you to do, in other words, when you aren’t willing to look foolish for God, you cut yourself off from being used by God in a significant way.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when David brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. The ark was this gold-covered box that represented God’s presence among his people. It had originally lived in the tabernacle, the place of worship for people in the Old Testament. But it had been hidden away for the last hundred years. So, David decides to bring it back to Jerusalem, and has some trouble along the way getting it there. Finally, he gets the ark to Jerusalem. And the Bible says that as the ark is entering the city, that David leads the procession and he strips down to his underoos and dances before the Lord with all his might. Well, his wife, Michal is watching, and when David walks through the door, she says, dripping with sarcasm, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls.” And I love David’s response.

“David retorted to Michal, ‘I was dancing before the LORD, who chose me above your father and his family! [Just a little dig there.] He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the LORD. So I am willing to act like a fool in order to show my joy in the LORD. Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this.” 2 Samuel 6:21-22

David didn’t care what Michal or anybody else thought. He was willing to put his pride on the line to totally give himself in worship of the Lord. He says, you think I acted like a fool today. Well, I was doing it all for the Lord, and when it comes to what I’m willing to do to show my love for the Lord, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ll become even more foolish than this. That’s the kind of life God uses, people who are willing to lay it all on the line for God. Look at what Jesus says about following him, Matthew 16:25: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

The fear of foolishness paralyzes us in life. I can’t share my faith—I might look foolish. I can’t pray for a miracle—I might look foolish. I can’t get involved in a ministry—I might look foolish. I can’t seek out counseling—I might look foolish. I can’t change majors—I might look foolish. I can’t quit my job—I might look foolish. I can’t ask them out on a date—I might look foolish. I can’t raise my hand—I might look foolish. I can’t be baptized in front of everybody—I might look foolish.

But if you will be willing to look foolish for God, if you will embrace the incredible life God has for you, you just might find that there is some amazing stuff God wants to do in your life. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:25: “This ‘foolish’ plan of God is far wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is far stronger than the greatest of human strength.”

So, what lion is God calling you to chase? Let me give you a lion chaser’s manifesto: Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at your-self. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!

Chase the Lion - Part 6: Seizing Opportunities

2009-01-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages are inspired by and adapted from the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and the accompanying messages by Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

“Chase the Lion” is all about answering the question “What if the life you really want and the future God wants for you are hiding right now in your biggest problem, your worst failure … your greatest fear?” God wants to use those challenges in your life, and he doesn’t want you to back down from them.

Now, today, we are going to talk about seizing opportunities. We all love Starbucks. Starbucks is literally a worldwide phenomenon. It is synonymous with coffee and coffeehouses. It seems like there is a Starbucks on every street corner, every mall and every hospital in America. Pretty soon there are going to be Starbucks in Starbucks. But it didn’t start out that way.

When Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks on August 15, 1987 it was a small chain of coffeehouses in Seattle. Nothing more. Nothing less. Howard Schultz said his big, audacious goal was to open a store in Portland, Oregon. A few decades later, there are 15,000 stores in 44 countries with approximately 35 million customer visits every week! And for what it’s worth, Starbucks opens 5 new stores every day 365 days a year.

But Howard Schultz almost passed up the opportunity because it seemed too big. Schultz said it felt like a case of the salmon swallowing the whale. In other words, it seemed like a 500 pound lion. The asking price was $4 million. Schultz describes it this way in his autobiography, Pour Your Heart Into It:

“This is my moment, I thought. If I don’t seize the opportunity, if I don’t step out of my comfort zone and risk it all, if I let too much time tick on, my moment will pass. I knew that if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, I would replay it in my mind for my whole life, wondering: What if?”

On June 26, 1992—less than five years after Howard Schultz seized the opportunity—Starbucks’ stock went public. It was the second most active stock traded on the NASDAQ and by the closing bell, its market capitalization stood at $273 million. Not bad for a $4 million investment. Schultz saw an opportunity and he seized it.

So, today, we’re going to talk about how to seize opportunities in your life. Benaiah, the guy in the Old Testament that we are looking at, seized the opportunities that were put in front of him.

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab's mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with it. These are some of the deeds that made Benaiah almost as famous as the Three. He was more honored than the other members of the Thirty, though he was not one of the Three. And David made him commander of his bodyguard.” 2 Samuel 23:20-23 (NLT)

The biggest dangers, the scariest moments, the most challenging times, the biggest lions, become the doors of opportunity for Benaiah.

There’s this verse, tucked away in Colossians 4 that maybe you have missed. Colossians 4:5: “Make the most of every opportunity.” This Scripture doesn’t specify how many or how few opportunities. It doesn’t quantify how small or how large the opportunity. We simply need to make the most of every opportunity. The word translated opportunity in Colossians 4:5 is the Greek word kairos. It refers to a serendipitous window of opportunity.

During the holidays, a lot of times you will see signs in advertisements that says “for a limited time only.” You could post that across so many of the opportunities that God places in our lives, “for a limited time only.” So, you have the seize moment, take advantage of the opportunities while they present themselves.

Seeing and seizing opportunities is an underappreciated dimension of spiritual maturity. We are surrounded by God-ordained opportunities—opportunities to love, opportunities to laugh, opportunities to give, opportunities to learn, opportunities to serve. Seeing and seizing those opportunities is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ and be filled with the Spirit.

So, how do you seize opportunities by the mane? How do you take advantage of the opportunities that come along in life? And, listen, before we go any further, it’s important to understand that I’m talking about the opportunities that God gives you to make a difference in the world, not just any old opportunity.

Well, you do three things. First, be alert. You’ve got to be alert to the opportunities that arise in your life. A lot of the opportunities that come along in life, we don’t seize them because we don’t see them. We get so tied up in our own worlds and in the things that we have to do, that we miss the things that God wants us to do in life. So, we have to change our focus. I love the Message translation of Colossians 3:2:
“Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

What causes us to miss opportunities so often is that we can’t see past what we have to get done right now. It’s the tyranny of the urgent. The urgent stuff in our lives keeps us from being able to do anything else. There’s all this stuff that has to get done, so we miss out on what needs to be done. So, you have to go through life with eyes open to see what is happening around you that has kingdom significance. See other people through the eyes of Jesus.

Look at Ephesians 5:16-17: “Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in these evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.” You see, the Bible teaches us that God is always at work around you. God is always working all of history to bring about his purpose and his plan. And you’ve got to be ready when your moment arrives. You’ve got to be on the lookout for where God is at work. To do that, you have to give consideration to what God is doing in your life. You can’t be thoughtless. But let me tell you a little secret from the life of Benaiah. Most of the life-changing, world-changing moments in your life don’t look that way in the beginning.

They usually appear in one of two ways. Either, they are a mustard seed. They’re tiny, just a little dream that you may have. A casual conversation with someone where God stirs something in your heart. Several years ago, I went on a mission trip to Mexico doing Vacation Bible School during the summer. While I was there, the missionary told me that each year, hundreds of people die in the city during the winter because of exposure or because they build little charcoal fires to keep warm and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Their lives could literally be saved by a blanket. Just a little conversation. But it stirred something in me. And when I got back home, I talked to our church about it. That first year at Christmas we delivered 150 blankets to Mexico. Three years later, we delivered 1,400 blankets to Mexico. You’ve got to be alert to see those opportunities.

Then, the other way God’s opportunities come into our lives is disguised as 500 pound lions. They present themselves as huge problems, challenges, difficulties. I’m guessing that when Benaiah saw that lion on a snowy day, he wasn’t thinking, “This is my opportunity to rise through the ranks and become commander of Israel’s army.” You take on each of the challenges, each of the opportunities God gives to you, and he gives you greater ones.

So, how do you be alert to see those opportunities. You have to be in prayer mode. Look at Colossians 4:1: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” The word watchful is a throwback to the Old Testament watchmen whose job it was to sit on the city wall, scan the horizon, and keep watch. They were the first ones to see an attacking army or traveling traders. People who live in prayer mode are watchmen. They see further than others see. They see things before others see them. And they see things other people don’t see. Look at Psalm 5:3: “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” When you live life in prayer mode, you expect God to respond, you expect God to do something. And as a result, you are more attuned to what God is doing. Think of it this way, if you are thinking about buying a new car. And you shop around, and you find one car in particular that you really like and you start to think about buying that car. All of a sudden, what happens? Everywhere you go, you start seeing that car. You are attuned to seeing that car. That’s what prayer does in our spiritual lives. As we pray for God to give us opportunities, it creates an awareness in us of those opportunities in life. So, you have to be alert, and prayer is how you do that.

Second, be available. A lot of times we miss opportunities that God gives us to make a difference because we are not available, because we have too much going on. We see the opportunity, we know what we are supposed to do, and we say, “Hey, God that’s great, but I just don’t have time right now. Can you call on me when it’s more convenient?” But the more convenient time never arrives.

Listen, I’m pretty sure that Jesus had the most important job that anyone has ever had ever in the history of the world. I mean, he came to save humanity from their sins. And yet, he was always available to do what the Father wanted him to do. The last week of his life, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and there was this blind guy who wanted Jesus to heal him. And the guy is calling out to Jesus and making a commotion. And the disciples tell the guy to be quiet. Jesus doesn't have time to mess with him. The story is found in Luke 18:40-41: “Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’” Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die on a cross for the sins of the world. But for a moment, all of human history is put on hold, because there’s a blind guy who needs a touch from Jesus.

So, here’s what you do. Say, “God, I’m ready to be used by you. And God, I’ve got my schedule, and I’ve got the things that I want to do, and I need to do, but God, at any time today, if you’ve got something you want me to do, feel free to interrupt my schedule at any time. I’m available.” You see, here’s another thing about opportunities. God’s opportunities most often appear as interruptions. Look at Jesus’ life. Most of his miracles, most of his healings, came as a result of an interruption. Healing the blind man, healing the lame man, healing the woman with the hemorrhaging disorder, bringing Jairus’ daughter back to life, they were all interruptions.

Take a look at Benaiah’s life. I’m pretty sure that none of the three stories listed there, the two mighty Moabites, the big Egyptian with the spear, and the lion on a snowy day, I’m pretty sure none of those were on his schedule for the day. They were interruptions.

I don’t think that God takes delight in interrupting our lives. I think it’s that most of the time we don’t leave any space for God, so he has to interrupt our lives. But you’ve got to be ready and available when he does interrupt. Respond like Isaiah did, Isaiah 6:8: "Here am I, Lord, send me." Many of us would respond, “Here am I, Lord, I’m too busy.” People who seize opportunities are people who are ready at a moment’s notice. God wants to use you in amazing and incredible ways. God wants you to make a difference. And God has some opportunities for you that are more amazing than you can imagine, but you have to be available.

Third, to seize opportunity by the mane, take action. When the moment comes, when opportunity arises, don’t just talk about it, don’t stand around and wait, do something. It’s not enough just to be alert. It’s not enough just to be available You’ve got to take action. Take action when the moment arrives. Get into gear and act. Look at Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” If we had waited for perfect conditions to get married, to have kids, to start a church, we never would have done any of those things.

Benaiah seems like the kind of guy who takes action. I mean, chasing a lion into a pit on a snowy day and then jumping in the pit with the lion, not the most logical thing in the world to do. Some people would say, it wasn’t prudent. And maybe there was a voice in the back of Benaiah’s head that said, “Wouldn’t be prudent.” But the Bible doesn’t describe Benaiah as prudent. It says he was valiant. Benaiah could have done what was prudent and run away and maybe he would have survived. But lion chasers aren’t the most prudent people on the planet. They aren’t focused on avoiding problems. They want to chase them down and overcome them. They seize God-sized opportunities by the mane and wrestle them to the ground.

Look, there are times when you should be prudent, do the logical thing, do the responsible thing. But at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, and they put you in the ground, what would you rather it say on your tombstone, “a prudent person” or “a valiant warrior”?

Take action. James 4:17 says, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” Once you know what you ought to do, do it. The moment you know what God wants you to do is the moment God wants you to start doing something.

The English word opportunity comes from the Latin phrase ob portu. In the days before modern harbors, ships had to wait till flood tide to make it into port. The Latin phrase “ob portu” referred to that moment in time when the tide would turn. The captain and crew would wait for that one moment, and they knew that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in. Shakespeare uses this idea in the following lines from Julius Caesar. He says,

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries
On such a full sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

Are you going to take the opportunities that are placed before you in life, or are you going to miss them and be bound in shallows all your life, waiting on another opportunity to come.

Spiritual maturity is all about seeing and seizing opportunities. And that is how our spiritual journey begins. It begins by seizing the greatest opportunity we’ll ever be offered—the opportunity to spend eternity with God. John 1:12 says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” All we have to do to seize the opportunity is to receive Christ.

Link

2009-01-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

Check out Ed Stetzer's blog for an honest evaluation of what we have to do to stem the tide of decline in our churches: http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/.

Real Jesus - Part 3: Sweet Little Baby Jesus in a Manger

2009-01-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

The following is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Real Jesus" by Pastor Shawn Kemp.

We’ve been looking at some of the popular images of Jesus that are out there and comparing those images with the real Jesus. Now, today, we are going to look at sweet little baby Jesus in a manger. Remember, the first week, I told you about this scene from Talladega Nights where Ricky Bobby is saying the prayer with his family, and he says, "Dear little baby Jesus in the manger..." And he continues to address Jesus throughout the prayer as "Dear 8lb 6oz baby Jesus ... Dear tiny God ... use your little baby Jesus powers." Well, at one point in the prayer, his wife gets frustrated and says, "Ricky, I don't know why you keep referring to Jesus as a baby. He was a grown man, you know. He had a beard, for crying out loud." To which Ricky Bobby responds, "I like the baby Jesus best. When you say the prayer you can pray to teenage Jesus or grown up Jesus or whichever Jesus you like best." He likes sweet little baby Jesus in a manger the best. And a lot of people do.

Now, this image of Jesus is just what it says. It is the image of Jesus as an adorable, peaceful, serene little baby, lying in a manger, just as sweet as he can be.

Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with this image. There are just certain sights and smells and sounds and experiences that we always associate with Christmas. And one of the most familiar images of Christmas and certainly the most important is a manger scene, a nativity, Joseph and Mary, the baby Jesus lying in a manger, a feed trough, in a stable, surrounded by livestock, shepherds surrounding them.

So, it’s an important image, it’s just not all there is to the story. The Son of God has come, and He is born in a stable and laid in a manger.

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. … And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:1-7 (KJV)

I think we tend to romanticize what happened that night. Our manger scenes are a lot more peaceful than it probably was that night. Mary is obviously pregnant. She is eight months, 29 days, and 23 hours pregnant. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I’ve had a wife who has given birth four times. I have some understanding of what this point in pregnancy is like. There is nothing about Mary that is comfortable at this point. Her feet are swollen; her back is hurting; she’s not getting much sleep at night. They’ve been on the road for the last couple of weeks as they have traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And now, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. You know what that is? That’s a pretty way of saying “she went into labor.”

And can’t you just imagine the conversation at this point?

Mary: (in labor) Joseph.
Joseph: Yes, dear.
Mary: It’s time.
Joseph: It’s time?
Mary: It’s time.
Joseph: Now, by “it’s time” you mean …
Mary: (growing more irritated) Joseph!
Joseph: Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure. I’ll start looking for a place.
Mary: Joseph, if you don’t pull over right now and find a place for me to have this baby, I’m going to have it on this donkey!
Joseph: Okay, honey. But I don’t know where I’m going to stop. All the hotels say, “No vacancy.”
Mary: Just stop at the next place and ask them if they have anywhere that we can stay. Surely they won’t turn away a pregnant woman who’s about to have a baby!

But that is exactly what happens! Joseph comes to the inn looking for a place to stay, but he is turned away because there is no room left. Can you imagine? I mean, it’s no secret to anybody what Mary’s condition is at this point. But they can’t find a place for her. Nobody is willing to give up their space for the night for a woman in labor, about to have a baby. And so, Joseph, I’m sure, is frantic at this point and finds the best place he can come up with on short notice.

Now, we’ve kind of white-washed the story at this point. Most of the images of the manger have it in a stable, a barn. But according to tradition, the manger was not in a stable, but in a cave on the outskirts of town. And that’s how the Son of God came into the world, born in a cave because nobody would make room for him, and laid in a feed trough.

Now, if you are going to understand Real Jesus, then you have to understand why a manger. Why would God choose this way for His Son to come into the world? Why was the Son of God born in a cave and laid in a manger? If Jesus is as we believe, the one and only Son of God, why was He born in such humble circumstances? I mean, it seems like it should have gotten a lot more attention. I mean, it seems like it would have had more impact if it had been an internationally televised event, with billions of people watching. And Jesus could have come down on a lightning bolt right through the hole in the roof in Texas Stadium with an entourage of angels dressed like Secret Service Agents with the black suits and shades and earpieces surrounding Him. And then He could have said in a loud, booming voice, “I am the Son of God.” And the crowd would go wild, and everybody would worship Him.

But that is not how God did it. So why was the Son of God laid in a manger? Why did the angels announce His birth to shepherds and not the powerful rulers in Jerusalem and Rome? Why was He born into the family of a peasant carpenter and his wife instead of in the home of a king or a rich man?

Well, to understand how it is that Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Son of God was born in a cave and laid in a manger first requires that we understand why there was the need for a Savior at all. And to understand that, we need to go way back in time to the very first man and woman and see how it all began. In the very beginning, in Genesis, there was a man and a woman in love. And God said to them: “You can have it all.” Genesis 2:16-17: “The Lord God commanded him, ‘You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!’” Then the woman met someone who came along named Satan who said, “You won't die! God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.” This is actually where the Christmas story begins: Eve reached up and took a bite of the fruit, and then gave some to her husband and he ate as well. And Adam and Eve who had enjoyed a perfect, personal relationship with God (can you imagine it?) suddenly ran to hide themselves from their loving Father. And God Himself came to walk with them and called out: “Where are you?” And Adam replied, “I heard you, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” And guilty and full of remorse and anxiety, all things Adam and Eve had never ever experienced before.

But instead of making them pay a price that day, because God had said, “On the day you eat thereof you will surely die,” God had mercy on them, took an animal, probably a lamb and killed it, and with its fleece made clothing for Adam and Eve. Now don’t miss this—Adam and Eve though they had sinned did not immediately die. But their sin DID cause a death, that of the lamb. The first lamb of sacrifice. Right there, right in the Garden, that soon.

So, what happened next? Well, let’s skip forward in time a little bit to a man named Abraham. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had no children. He had all the sheep he wanted, all the flocks and herds, all the wealth. But he had no children. And he was obeying God; he was walking with God. And one day God said to him:

“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. … I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.” Genesis 17:3-7 (NIV)

Now, Abraham was 99 years old when God made this promise to him, and he still didn’t have a son, but God promised him that he was going to make him into a multitude of nations through a son that He was going to give him. And the Bible said that Abraham believed God.

Now, not much later God came to Abraham and again said, “I am going to give you a son.” And do you know what Sarah, Abraham’s wife, did? She fell down laughing! Because she was 90 and Abraham was 100. “Are you kidding? What are you saying, God?” But God said, “You and Sarah really are going to have a son. And not only are you going to have a son but through him, through his line, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” Remember, Sarah’s 90.

But you know what? Nothing is too hard for God. And Sarah had a son, and they named him Isaac. Well, more time passed. Isaac was now a young man. And God came back to Abraham and said, “If you trust me, you’ll take your son up on Mount Moriah and offer him to me as a sacrifice.”

“Later on God tested Abraham's faith and obedience. 'Abraham!’ God called. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Here I am.’ ‘Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.’” Genesis 22:1-2 (NLT)

Isaac? Sacrifice Isaac? This is the promised son. This is the son through whom God is going to bless the whole earth. This is the son that Abraham loves and cherishes, the son who means everything in the world to him. And yet Abraham continued to believe God, and he got up the next morning to do what God asked him to do. And Abraham, Isaac and some servants headed up toward what is now Jerusalem to Mount Moriah. And the Bible says after a three day journey they could see it. Now three days from their starting point would have brought them near to Bethlehem making their last stop near what is now Bethlehem.

And the Bible says that Abraham and Isaac left the servants there and went on alone. Father and son begin to make the journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Now Abraham put the wood for the sacrifice on the shoulders of his son. The boy’s father laid the wood across the shoulders of his only, much loved son and Isaac carried it himself. Abraham, the father, carried the fire and the knife. And Isaac said, “Here’s the fire. Here’s the knife. Where’s the lamb?” And Abraham replied, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." And Abraham went straight ahead and bound up Isaac, laid him on the altar, raised the knife. And we are told in this incredible story that the voice of the Lord said, “Don’t lay a hand on the boy! Because you have believed me enough to offer your only son, you will be blessed beyond what you can imagine.”

So the ropes are cut loose. And as Abraham and Isaac are embracing each other and weeping together, they hear something in the thorn bushes. It was a ram, and his horns were caught in the thicket. And the ram was taken and sacrificed instead of Isaac. Just like Abraham predicted: “God Himself will provide the sacrifice.” Again, don’t lose sight of this fact: Isaac’s life was spared, but not without cost. The ram still died to complete the sacrifice!

And really, that summarizes the belief of the Jewish people throughout the Old Testament: that all those lambs, and goats, and turtle doves, tens and hundreds of thousands of sacrifices offered to the God of Israel, covered the sins of those who disobeyed God. In fact, in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews says, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.”

There are countless other instances of lambs of sacrifice. We could talk about the Passover lambs whose blood spared the lives of the first born of the Hebrews in Egypt when the first born of the Egyptians all died. And all the sacrifices around Mount Sinai and all the sacrifices before the tabernacle and still later, all the sacrifices before the Temple of the Lord on the Temple Mount on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

Now consider this: At the time of Solomon’s Temple Bethlehem was the location of what was known as the Migdal Eder, the Tower of the Flock. It was the center of the raising of the sacrificial lambs. In fact, all the perfect, first born male lambs, born to the Temple flocks around Bethlehem were KORBAN, set apart from birth to be sacrificed in the Temple. Consider such a lamb, less than a year in age, perfectly formed and completely innocent, taken up to Jerusalem retracing the steps of Abraham and Isaac taken to the great Temple to be sacrificed for sin.

Now, I come to the temple to offer a sacrifice, and I buy one of those lambs and I come to offer it for the forgiveness of my sins. I take the lamb and I hand it to one of the priests at the temple. But the last thing I do before they sacrifice that lamb is I lay my hands on that pure, innocent lamb of Bethlehem, and I confess my sins, my faults, my guilt, my remorse, my separation from God, and He forgives me. But don’t miss this, the lamb still dies in my place.

Now listen to Luke 2:6-7 again, “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” God Himself looked at the pastures and fields of Bethlehem and remembering all the clues, all the hints, all the foreshadowing, all the prophecy, He brought it all to fulfillment that night. The perfect lamb, the first born male, born in Bethlehem set apart from birth to be The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Son of God was not born in a palace not even in a cozy birthing room with a cheery fire but in a stable; a lambing cave. Why? Because where else would the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world have to be born? And what is the confirmation that this conclusion is correct? To whom was the miraculous birth first announced? To the shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, the shepherds of the Temple flocks, the keepers of the lambs of sacrifice who saw, not a newborn lamb lying on the straw but a human and divine baby, lying in the manger. And scripture says that they spread the story everywhere! No doubt they carried the news up to Jerusalem with the next flock of lambs.

Thirty-three years later He walked that same road – the same road of Abraham with Isaac – the same road as thousands of lambs of sacrifice… to the Cross!

WHY A MANGER? It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Because Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sins.“God will provide for himself a lamb for the burnt offering.” “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” What a price? What it cost God for the blood of His only beloved Son to cover our sins… to pay for our salvation!

Now, what is your response to that sacrifice? Come to the manger. Claim the gift of God’s Son. Claim that lamb; that perfect sacrifice; as your own. Lay your hands on him and say, “I accept this great gift of your love and salvation.” No matter who you are…. No matter what you have done… no matter what your life is… no matter what your doubts are… You can receive the gift of God’s love and forgiveness and you can be a part of His family. Why a Manger? The Son of God was born in stable and laid in a manger as the perfect lamb of sacrifice… for you.

Mexico Mission Trip

2009-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a mission trip to Mexico. It was a really amazing time. We took a group of eleven to deliver blankets, stuffed animals, toys, and candy. As we gave away the gifts, we also distributed copies of the Gospel of John.

We went to a little fishing village on the coast called Las Higuerillas. The village is very poverty-stricken and there is little gospel witness there. One day, we traveled by boat to an island in the Gulf where few mission teams have been.

We had one decision for Christ, saw some beautiful people, made some new friends, and shared the love of Christ. I hope to post some pictures this week.

Real Jesus - Part 2: Santa Claus Jesus

2008-12-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

The following is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Real Jesus" by Pastor Shawn Kemp.

During the Christmas season, we are taking a look at who Jesus really is. After all, Jesus is who Christmas is all about. It’s his birthday that we are celebrating.

You see, there are a lot of people who say they like Jesus, but they don’t necessarily know a lot about Jesus. For a lot of people, Jesus is little more than a plastic bobble-head doll that is kind of amusing and makes you smile and they have good feelings about him, but that’s about all there is to their image of Jesus. But the real Jesus is so much more phenomenal, so much more amazing, so much more incredible. And, so, what we are doing in this series is we are just looking at some of the popular images and ideas of Jesus that are out there, and comparing those images with the real Jesus.

Jesus one time posed the same kind of question to his disciples.

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’”

Who do you say that I am? Here’s why this is so important. Because our view of Jesus has a huge impact on the way we live our lives. Your view of Jesus will effect the way you treat other people, the way you pray, the risks you are willing to take in life, the way you impact the world around you, the things you give your time and energy and talents and money to. Your view of Jesus affects your work and your marriage and your relationships with your children and your friends and your family. Who you see Jesus to be, how you understand Jesus affects just about every part of your life.

So, last week we looked at “Jesus Is My Homeboy,” pop culture Jesus, Jesus on t-shirts and Jesus on television and the movies, Jesus on a cross around your neck, the Jesus who is popular and everybody loves. And we discovered the truth that Jesus is popular, that people are drawn to Jesus. But we also saw that Jesus’ teachings are often unpopular and that following Jesus requires commitment.

Now, this week, we are looking at a second popular image of Jesus, Santa Claus Jesus. Santa Claus Jesus is Jesus who is very much like Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. This image of Jesus is Jesus who loves everybody. He is jolly and immensely friendly and kind and loving and warm. He has a beard. He smiles a lot. And he wears a white robe with a red sash. This version of Jesus is an important holiday symbol. After all, it is Christmas. Now, for this holiday symbol, instead of making the annual trek to the mall to see him, you go to church to see him. Maybe you have him in a nativity set or you send out Christmas cards with pictures of him on them. Santa Claus Jesus loves children. I mean, the pictures of him look a lot like Santa. He’s sitting down and he’s got kids in his lap whispering in his ear. You tell me, haven’t you seen those pictures of Jesus?

But at the heart of Santa Claus Jesus is you tell him whatever you want, and he gives it to you. Just like when you sit on Santa’s lap and tell him your Christmas wishes, Santa Claus Jesus you use the format of prayer, but you tell him whatever you want or need and he gives it to you. And there are a lot of preachers who promote the idea of Santa Jesus. You need a car, you need a raise, you need a bigger house, nicer clothes, a new boyfriend, whatever you could possibly desire, you tell it to Jesus, wait a little while, and he will give it to you if you’ve been a good boy or girl. In this respect, Santa Jesus is very similar to Jesus in a Lamp, rub the lamp, out pops Jesus you tell him your wishes and he grants them, or slot machine Jesus. Pull the arm of prayer enough times and you’re bound to hit the jackpot.

So, that’s Santa Claus Jesus. Now, what’s the reality, the real Jesus and is there any truth to Santa Jesus? Well, first, Jesus loves people. There is some truth to that aspect of the Santa Jesus. Jesus loves people. Probably one of the most famous verses in the Bible is John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Jesus whole existence, his whole reason to coming to earth and becoming a man, is bound up in the love of God for people. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. The motivation behind Christmas is the love of God. The purpose of Jesus is the demonstration of God’s love.

So, the idea that the Santa Jesus loves people is not wrong. I just don’t think it goes far enough. If the love of God is just a warm fuzzy toward everybody, it is not nearly as incredible as the real love of the real Jesus. God so loved the world. He loves red people and brown people and black people and white people and tan people. He loves people who speak Spanish or English or Korean or Arabic or Swahili. He loves men and women, children and adults, short people and tall people, fat people and skinny people, pretty people and ugly people. He loves people who are kind and gentle and generous.

But he also loves people who are cruel and wicked. He loves addicts and prostitutes and liars and thieves. He even loved the people who nailed him to a cross. And he loves people who will ultimately reject him and spend eternity separated from him. Santa Claus loves you if you’ve been a good little girl or boy. But if you are naughty, there’s not going to be much for you in Santa’s bag of goodies. But that is not the love of the real Jesus. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus loved us while we were still his enemies, while we were still set against him. And the gift Jesus gave was not a doll that talks or a pair of skates, but the gift of his own life.

Why did he do it? Look at 1 John 4:9: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” God loves us and he showed it by sending his Son, so that we could have life. Here’s the great thing. Jesus loves us even while we are sinners, but he loves us even more than that. He loves us so much that he is not content to leave us like we are. His love is a love that changes us. You see, Santa says that you have to be a good little boy or girl, but he doesn’t do anything to help you be good. Jesus changes you from the inside out so that we might live through him.

Jesus loves people. Second, Jesus can meet all my needs. Again, there’s some truth here behind Santa Jesus. The idea that Jesus can meet whatever needs I bring to him is absolutely correct. Philippians 4:19 says, “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” My need will never exceed God’s supply. God owns it all, so there will never come a time in my life that God cannot meet the needs in my life if I bring them to him. Look at Mark 11:24: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” That seems like a pretty open-ended promise, doesn’t it? Whatever you ask for, believe it and you’ll receive it. That sounds like the Santa Claus Jesus.

But look again at Philippians 4:19. There’s a part of that verse that we often miss, the last part. In Christ Jesus. The greatest riches God has to offer are found in Jesus Christ. We so often are asking God for stuff, for money and possessions and cars and houses, and God is saying, “But wait, I have so much more to give you.” Jesus Christ was the greatest treasure heaven had to offer. The greatest treasures God has to give you have nothing to do with money or possessions. The greatest treasures are the things God wants to give you in a relationship with Jesus. It’s not that Jesus gives us treasure. He is the treasure.

We ask for the wrong things and with the wrong motives, so God doesn’t give us the things we ask for.

“You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4:2-3

When I was in the eighth grade, I got in a fight on the school bus one afternoon. I prayed and prayed for God to not let me get a paddling. I made God all sorts of promises. Monday, when school came around, you know what happened? I got a paddling. Jesus is not Santa Claus. He’s not a genie in a lamp, and he’s not a slot machine. He gives us the things we need, and he wants to give us so much more if we would ask him for those things.
The problem is not that we pursue pleasure to satisfy the needs in our lives. The problem is that we are satisfied with such meaningless pleasures.

Here’s the secret, the secret to getting what you ask for in prayer. Ps. 37:4: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” When you get to the point that God is your heart’s desire, where following God and his will for your life is all that you want, where you desire to know him better and love him more, where the cry of your heart is Jesus himself, then God will always grant your request. Santa wants to give you stuff. Jesus wants to give you himself, and that is so much better than stuff. Jesus can meet my needs.

Then, third, Jesus gives and he takes away. Just like Santa Claus, Jesus gives gifts. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” Romans 6:23. God offers an incredible gift through Jesus, the gift of eternal life. And all you have to do to get that gift is receive it. You don’t earn it. You don’t work for it. You don’t have to try to be a good enough person. You don’t have to straighten your life out. You don’t have to try to impress anybody. All you have to do is receive the gift of God by believing in Jesus Christ, making him the leader of your life, and asking him to forgive you of your sins.

You see, some people have this mistaken idea that Jesus is like Santa Claus when it comes to good boys and girls. They think he’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice. And just like Santa Claus, they think God has this list where he keeps track of every good thing you’ve ever done, and every bad thing you’ve ever done. And if there are more good things on the list than bad things, then you are a good little boy or girl and God lets you into heaven.

Now, there are two ways that people generally react to that idea. Some people think they are good. They think they are a pretty good person, they’ve lived a good enough life, and they are on the nice list. But, man, I’m not comfortable with staking my eternity on whether or not I’ve been good enough. To think that I have to work my way into heaven. I mean, talk about making you paranoid. There’s no security there. How do I know if I’ve done enough good stuff. Man, I can’t even keep track of all the bad stuff I’ve done, all the times I had a bad thought, all the mean things I’ve said, all the times I told a lie, all the times I let a friend down, all the times I’ve acted selfishly. I don’t have a shot.

Then there are people who think they are for sure on the naughty list and there’s no way they could ever get in. There’s no way God could ever forgive them. They think they have permanently screwed up their lives.

Well, let me show you God’s list, and what Jesus has done with that list. Colossians 2:13-14:

“When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, God made you alive with Christ, and he forgave all our sins. He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross.”

Charges for a crucified man were listed above him. Jesus took our list. It’s as if on the cross, Jesus took the charges that were intended for us, and they were nailed above his head. He took our list, and he destroyed it on the cross.

You see, Jesus does what Santa can’t do. He doesn’t just give, he also takes away. You see, Santa can’t do anything about your discouragement. Santa leaves and you’ve still got to deal with a broken relationship with your husband or wife. When bills need to be paid in January, Santa is long gone. When you are trying to overcome an addiction in February, Santa is no help. When your kid is in a car wreck after the prom, Santa is no help. When you are going through the pain of a divorce, he’s nowhere to be found. When you are struggling with worry or doubt or confusion, when you are crying because of guilt or anger or hurt, when you are depressed and alone and afraid, Santa’s no help.

But there is a Savior, named Jesus Christ, who came to take all that away. Look at 1 John 3:5: “[Jesus] appeared so that he might take away our sins.” You see, Jesus offers us this wonderful, incredible, amazing deal. He says, “You give me all your guilt and all your hurt and all your sin and all your doubt and worry and confusion and anger and addiction, give me all your stuff, and I’ll give you all my righteousness and all my peace and all my joy and all my love, I’ll give you all my stuff.” That’s a really good deal. So, how about you? Are you willing to make that deal.

Remember all the anticipation you had waiting for Santa to arrive. Well, Jesus is way better than Santa Claus, and you can have the greatest gift of all this Christmas if you give your life to Jesus.

Real Jesus - Part 1: Jesus Is My Homeboy

2008-12-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

The following is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Real Jesus" by Pastor Shawn Kemp.

Good morning! Hey, today we are starting a new series called “Real Jesus.” We are entering into the Christmas season, and we are preparing for Christmas, and Jesus is what Christmas is all about. I mean, it’s a celebration of his birth. So, I thought, what better way to spend the month of December than focusing on Jesus.

And the way we are going to do that is we are going to be looking at some different images, different ideas of Jesus that are out there and seeing what is the truth behind them? Jesus once questioned his disciples about some of the ideas people had about him:

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’” Matthew 16:13-15 (NIV)

Who do you say that I am? Our view of Jesus has a huge impact on the way we live our lives. How many of you have seen the movie Talladega Nights? Yeah, some of you are embarassed to admit it. Talladega Nights tells the story of Ricky Bobby, a NASCAR racer. And, there's this one seen where Ricky Bobby is sitting at the table with his family and best friend, Cal Naughton, Jr. And Ricky Bobby says the prayer, and he says, "Dear little baby Jesus in manger..." And he continues to address Jesus throughout the prayer as "Dear 8lb 6oz baby Jesus ... Dear tiny God ... use your little baby Jesus powers." Well, at one point in the prayer, his wife gets frustrated and says, "Ricky, I don't know why you keep referring to Jesus as a baby. He was a grown man, you know. He had a beard, for crying out loud." To which Ricky Bobby responds, "I like the baby Jesus best. When you say the prayer you can pray to teenage Jesus or grown up Jesus or whichever Jesus you like best." To which Ricky's friend Cal says, "I like to think of Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt. It's like he's formal but here for the party." Then Ricky's son Walker (his brother's name is Texas Ranger) says, "I like to think of Jesus as a ninja, battling evil samurai." Then, Cal says, "I like to think of Jesus with these giant golden eagles' wings and singing lead for Lynard Skynard surrounded by an angel band."

There are a lot of people who have a lot of different ideas about who Jesus is and what he is like. There are a lot of people who have some understanding of Jesus and maybe they even like Jesus, but do they have a proper understanding of who Jesus really is? What tends to happen is that we fashion Jesus in our own image. We make Jesus out to be the kind of Jesus that we would like for him to be. “I like to think of Jesus as a ninja.” Or, on the other hand, sometimes our view of Jesus is fashioned by the hangups and hurts and failures in our lives. Some people see Jesus as the culmination of everything that is wrong in their lives.

The point, however, is that often our images of Jesus fall far short of the real Jesus. What we wind up with is a plastic Jesus, a bobble-head Jesus who is a shallow imitation of the real deal. Listen, I’m guilty. I have this image of Jesus in my head and what I think he was like. But there are times that I am reading the Bible and I have to take a step back and reevaluate because the Jesus I find in the Bible doesn’t match the Jesus I have in my head. He’s saying something or doing something that I can’t grasp.

The real Jesus is so much better than the imitations, so much better than the plastic bobble-head Jesus. So, how do we get at the real Jesus? It’s by going back to the Bible. We constantly have to take our images of Jesus back to the real Jesus we find in the Bible and see if our images of Jesus really match up.

The Jesus in the Bible is the incredible, awesome, amazing, awe-inspiring Son of God who is worthy of worship. The Jesus in the Bible laughed and made jokes and had fun with his disciples and poked fun at people who took themselves too seriously. The Jesus in the Bible cried and hurt for people who were sorrowing and felt compassion for others. He got angry, overturning tables, using a whip, pronouncing judgment on cities that rejected him and people who turned away from him. He was often confusing and difficult to understand and hard to follow. He said things that upset the wrong people and he said things that upset the people who were closest to him. He was at the same time more and less than what people expected. He was full of paradoxes. He was God and man. He was lion and lamb. He was altogether lovely and he had nothing in his appearance that would draw us to him.

That’s the Jesus that we are going to be trying to discover as we look at some of the other ideas about Jesus that are popular out there. So, the first one we are going to look at is “Jesus Is My Homeboy.” Now, just a little explanation, if you aren’t aware of the Jesus Is My Homeboy phenomenon, it is a slogan and a logo that is on everything from T-shirts to hats to bumper stickers to underwear. It has become immensely popular, especially among Hollywood celebrities like Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher, Madonna, Jessica Simpson, they’ve all been spotted wearing Jesus Is My Homeboy paraphernalia.

So, Jesus Is My Homeboy is pop culture Jesus. He’s the Jesus who everybody likes, everybody is okay with, everybody is comfortable with. He’s the Jesus who’s cool to like, the Jesus who even Hollywood celebrities can like.

So, what’s the truth behind pop culture Jesus? The truth is Jesus is popular. People like Jesus. Surveys show that most people like Jesus. People are drawn to him. Even people who don’t profess to be followers of Jesus tend to like Jesus. And it has always been that way. “When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him” Matthew 8:1 (NIV). Have you ever noticed in the Bible, the crowds tended to like Jesus? They stalked him wherever he went. I mean, the Bible says a number of times that Jesus tried to get away from the crowds but they just followed him wherever he went. Jesus drew crowds out in the middle of nowhere upwards of fifteen to twenty thousand people. And that’s before marketing strategies, public relations campaigns, radio, television, the internet, podcasts, even P.A. systems. It was all on the strength of who he was, what he did, what he taught. There was a magnetism to Jesus that drew people.

And there still is. Yeah, a lot of the people wearing the Jesus Is My Homeboy t-shirts or wearing a cross around their necks or who pray or go to church or sing Christmas songs or listen to Christian radio don’t really know a lot about Jesus, but that does not diminish the fact that people are drawn to Jesus. There’s just something about Jesus. There’s an old song that says, “There’s just something about that name.” And it’s true.

Now, there were obviously some things about Jesus that people were and are attracted to. Luke 4:40 says,

“As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.”

Jesus was the most amazing thing to come to town. And he still is. The touch of his hand still heals everyone, no matter what your diseases are. Jesus has the power to change your life. Don’t underestimate that. People spend millions of dollars each year, travel all over the world, go to therapy, try cosmetics and surgery, try new experiences, all to try to change their lives. And all it takes is Jesus. Jesus has the power to change your life. And that’s pretty attractive.

Another thing that drew people to Jesus was apparently he was pretty fun to be around. Look at Matthew 11:19: “And I, the Son of Man, feast and drink, and you say, ‘He's a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of the worst sort of sinners!’” Man, I think that’s one of those images of Jesus that uptight religious people need to spend a little more time on. Apparently Jesus had so much fun that people accused him of being a drunk. Now, from what I can determine, Jesus didn’t actually get drunk. It’s just that he had so much fun, he was so free and uninhibited with his personality that people thought he was drunk. You kind of get the image that wherever Jesus went, there was a good chance that a party could break out at any moment. And I love this part, he was a friend of the worst sort of sinners. Man, we shouldn’t be surprised that people like Jesus. We shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus is popular. We shouldn’t be surprised that even “the worst sort of sinners” finds something about Jesus that is attractive. And so, we don’t need to be afraid of making Jesus attractive to people.

One of my favorite verses about Jesus is Luke 15:1-2: “All the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’” This man receives sinners. Is that the worst you can come up with? This man receives sinners. Aren’t you glad? He received prostitutes, embezzling tax collectors, crude fishermen, former terrorists, lepers, adulterers. He receives homosexuals and drug addicts and alcoholics and people with eating disorders and people who have screwed up their kids and their marriages. He receives the greedy and the power hungry and the depressed and the broken. This man receives sinners. Everybody is welcome to come to Jesus.

So there is truth behind the pop-culture Jesus. Jesus is popular. But there’s more to the real Jesus than just popularity. You see, although Jesus is popular, Jesus’ teaching is often unpopular. There are a lot of people who say they like Jesus, but they don’t really know what he taught. They like the idea of Jesus. They like the image they have built of Jesus, but sometimes they don’t like what Jesus has to say. Now, let’s all be honest. We all feel that way at times. I love Jesus. Sometimes I’m not so crazy about some of the things he has to say about my life. Sometimes when I am confronted with the truth of Jesus’ teaching, I get a little uncomfortable because I realize I fall short of what he expects of me.

Now, again, it’s always been that way. There’s a verse in John that I think is one of the saddest verses in the gospels. Appropriately, it’s John 6:66, John 666. The crowds have been flocking to Jesus. He is at the peak of his popularity. The people are ready to make him king. And Jesus begins saying some things that make the people uncomfortable. He begins talking to them about the kind of commitment he expects of them. He tells them that it’s not enough just to want to make him king because he can do a few tricks, because he can put food on the table. He says, you have to be willing to lay down your life to follow me. He says, unless you are willing to eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can’t be my disciple. That might scare me off. And that’s what happened. “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Jesus became more than just a superstar. When people actually began to hear his message, they began to walk away.

What are some things about Jesus’ teaching that make people uncomfortable? Well, there are a lot, but let me show you just a couple. John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” People don’t like it when we say that Jesus is the only way to God. If people get upset about that, I say, “Don’t take it up with me. You’re going to have to talk to Jesus about that one.” The exclusiveness of Jesus. Jesus says, “There’s only one way to the Father. There’s no plan B, there are no alternatives.” It’s Jesus and Jesus alone, and people don’t like that.

But I don’t think that’s the real problem people have with Jesus. That’s just a cover-up for the real issue. And the real issue really comes down to what Jesus was all about, what was the whole purpose of his life, why he came to earth. Look at 1 Peter 3:18: “Christ also suffered when he died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God.” Why would anybody have a problem with that idea, that Jesus died to save sinners? Well, here’s what makes people uncomfortable. The message of the cross is that Jesus died to pay the price for sin, for our sins. You see, at the heart of the cross is the idea that we have all sinned, that there must be a punishment for sin, and that the punishment for sin is death. And Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for the life I have lived. Now, for me to accept that, I have to accept that I am a sinner.

You see, what a lot of people want to believe is, “I’m okay and you’re okay and Jesus is okay with me and the way I live my life.” But the message of Jesus and the message of the cross is that we’re not okay. None of us are okay. We are all sinners. We have all chosen to rebel against God and live our lives our way and have hurt ourselves and other people and God along the way. So to really come to the real Jesus means I have to come face to face with the monster on the inside. And most people don’t want to do that. Jesus said, Jesus: “Unless you repent, you too will all perish” Luke 13:3 (NIV). Unless you repent, unless you change your heart and your mind, unless you turn away from sin and self, you will perish. That’s not popular, but that is the message of Jesus.

Now, there’s one more thing that the pop culture Jesus leaves out. That is, following Jesus requires commitment. It doesn’t take much commitment to wear a t-shirt. It doesn’t take much to get up on stage at the Country Music Awards and thank Jesus, your momma and all your fans. Pop culture Jesus doesn’t require a lot out of you. And that’s part of what makes him so popular. You can have a religious exterior without any real commitment.

But listen, it’s not just Hollywood celebrities and musicians who have low levels of commitment. There are a lot of people who talk about Jesus, who occasionally go to church, who wear a cross around their neck, but have little commitment to Jesus.

You see, there are a lot of things in life that we make very nominal commitments to, and that’s okay. Cell phone contracts, cable television or satellite providers, gym memberships, political parties. There are all kinds of things in our lives that we have some commitment to, but it is merely a commitment of convenience.

As a result, that’s the level of commitment that we bring to Jesus. And if Jesus is just plastic bobble-head Jesus, then that’s okay. But real Jesus requires something more. Do you know what Jesus’ basic call to commitment was? Look at Matthew 4:19: “Jesus said to them, ‘Come, follow me!’” It was a call to follow him, to spend time with him, to be around him, and to be like him. The disciples spent massive amounts of time with their rabbi, all with the goal of becoming just like him.

What kind of commitment does Jesus want of us? It’s really pretty basic. He wants to do what he says, he wants us to follow his teachings. “You are my friends if you do what I command” John 15:14 (NIV). Real Jesus requires something more than just wearing a shirt or praying occasionally or saying you love him. He says, “I want you to follow my instructions for your life.” And that is what a lot of people are unwilling to do. Making Jesus your lord means making him your boss, your manager, your leader. What a lot of people want is they want Jesus in their life, they just don’t want him on the throne. And Jesus says, “That won’t work.” The way to experience the real Jesus in your life is by putting him in control of your life.

You see, the evidence that you are a Christ-follower is not a t-shirt or a fish on your car or a cross on your wall. The evidence that you are a Christ-follower is you are following Christ. “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” 1 John 2:5-6 (NIV). It’s about more than just talking the talk. It’s about walking the walk. The real Jesus says, “Come, follow me.” Will you come?

Chase the Lion - Part 5: Taking Risks

2008-12-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages are inspired by and adapted from the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and the accompanying messages by Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

On October 31st, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther walked up to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany and posted a piece of paper on the church doors. His 95 theses listed 95 points of contention with the sale of indulgences—the selling of forgiveness by the church. Luther was put on trial. He was excommunicated from the church. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—it ignited the Protestant Reformation.

On April 18th, 1945, a factory owner named Oskar Schindler had a list of 1097 names manually typed—297 women and 800 men. He rescued them from Nazi Concentration Camps. Schindler lost everything. He died broke. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—a half-century later, there are more than 6,000 descendants of the people on Schindler’s list.

On December 1st, 1951, a seamstress named Rosa Parks got on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Segregation laws required black passengers to give up their seat for white passengers. Rosa Parks refused to do it. She was arrested. She lost her job. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—it inspired a citywide boycott and a court battle. Within two years, bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional.

Here’s the point: it is often small acts of courage that change the course of history. Someone takes a risk and it has a domino effect.

Now here’s the thing. We think about people like Martin Luther and Oscar Schindler and Rosa Parks in heroic terms. But they didn’t know they were making history when they were making history! They were just ordinary people taking risks! But when you take a risk you never know what kind of domino effect it is going to have.

During the Chase the Lion series we’re looking at this guy in the Old Testament named Benaiah. He was one of the most decorated and celebrated warriors in Israel’s history. He was the captain of King David’s bodyguard. He was one of David’s thirty mighty men, his special forces. And Benaiah goes on to become Commander-in-Chief of Israel’s army. But it all goes back to three risks that Benaiah took found in 2 Samuel 23:20-23:

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab's mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with it.”

Benaiah took three risks, and those three risks had a domino effect. Here’s the point, often the life of following God involves taking risks. Now, most of us tend to shy away from risk in our lives. We try to do everything possible to reduce the amount of risk in our lives, whether it’s relational risk or financial risk or job risk or emotional risks or physical risks. We try to eliminate the element of surprise in our lives. But I’ll bet some of the best things in your life involved taking risks. Some of the most amazing things God wants to do in your life involves taking risks. Perhaps the only thing between you and your destiny is one small act of courage. Taking a risk may be the key to the life God wants you to live.

In fact, Jesus told a story one time that illustrates the necessity of taking risks when it comes to being a follower of Jesus Christ and having an impact in life. Look at Matthew 25:

“The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ … Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’”

If you really want to appreciate this parable you’ve got to realize that one talent was the ancient equivalent of over twenty-seven years of a day laborer’s salary. So, the servant who receives 5 talents receives over 135 years of salary. I don’t know about you, but if someone gives me a hundred and thirty-five years wages I don’t know if I ever take another risk. I’ve got enough money to last the rest of my life. You know what I’m saying? It had to tempting to play it safe. He had more to lose! But he also had more to gain!

Now, from this parable, I want to give you three principles about taking risks, and maybe they will encourage you to take more risks in your life and in your faith.

First, faith requires risk. Faith always requires risk. We talked about this quite a bit last week. Faith always involves an element of the unknown, so there is always a risk involved in faith. In the story, the servants who take the greatest risk are commended. They are called faithful. Don’t miss that. Faithfulness involves taking risks. I think we tend to think of faithfulness in maintenance terms. Faithfulness is holding the fort, maintaining the status quo, hanging on to what you have. And nothing could be further from the truth. Faithfulness is multiplying what you have to the best of your God-given ability. Faithfulness isn’t minimizing risk. Faithfulness is maximizing risk. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. The life of following Jesus, at it’s core, is a life of embracing risk, of putting our own hold over our lives and our safety at risk in order to follow Jesus. Check out Mark 8:35: “If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life.” That’s putting your life at risk.

I am a huge football fan. I love to watch football. And one of the things I hate to see is when a team plays not to lose, instead of playing to win. You know, when a team gets a little lead and then just tries to sit on that lead till the end of the game. I want a team to go on the offensive. Not just hope they can hold a lead. I think too many of us are playing not to lose. The parable of the talents is about playing to win, risking what you have to get more.

Somewhere, I think we have gotten the mistaken idea that faith involves a reduction of risk in life, like the goal of faith is to reduce risk so that we are safe and at ease and everything is secure in our lives. But, have you read the Bible lately? Faith is risky business. Look at the descriptions of faith in Hebrews 11:

“By faith … Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land …Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going … He offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him … The people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground … By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight.”

Risk, risk, risk. Hebrews 11 is the Bible’s longest discussion on faith, and every instance of faith cited in Hebrews 11 involved risk. The goal of faith is not the elimination of risks. God never promised us a risk-free existence. What he does promise is that He will be with us. What’s interesting is that the promise of God’s presence in our lives throughout the Bible is almost always in the context of risk. When you go through the flood, when you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, when you go through the fire, when you face your enemies, as you take the gospel to the ends of the earth, when you are persecuted, I will be with you. Faith requires risk. Your greatest experience of God’s presence, your greatest growth times in your faith, will come when you take risks for God.

Now, here’s the second truth, playing it safe is risky. One servant in the parable plays it safe, he buries the silver his master gave him. Instead of taking a risk, he hides what he has been given. He breaks even. And some of the harshest words in the Bible are reserved for this servant. Apparently breaking even isn’t good enough. In the context of this parable, wickedness is burying what God has given you in the ground and just sitting on it. He doesn’t take action because he is afraid of what will happen if he messes
up.

Psychologists tell us there are two types of regrets in life, action regrets and inaction regrets. Action regrets are regrets for something we have done. Inaction regrets are regrets for things we didn’t do, opportunities we have missed, things we wish we had said or done but we didn’t. And what they have discovered is that in the short term, action regrets are stronger, but over the years, inaction regrets are stronger. In other words, when we come to the end of our lives, the things we will most regret are the things we didn’t do. And the Bible confirms this. “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.”

Righteousness is about more than just not doing the bad things that God doesn’t want us to do. It’s also about doing the good things that God does want us to do. It’s about chasing the lion, changing the world, taking risks,
stepping out in faith.

There’s this story in the New Testament that I love. The disciples are out on the sea of Galilee in a boat, and it’s the middle of the night, and the wind is blowing really hard. And the disciples are afraid, and Jesus comes waling to them on the water.

“During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ ‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied, ‘tell me to come to you on the water.’ ‘Come,’ he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

When you take risks and step out in faith, you almost always second guess yourself. You make the decision to get out of the boat and you have second thoughts. And you start sinking spiritually because you start focusing on the wind and the waves. Now, Peter gets a tough rap, a lot of times. He’s the guy who denied Jesus three times, but he was the only one who got close enough to Jesus to get caught. He’s the one who seems to stick his foot in his mouth all the time, but it’s only because he says what’s on all the other disciples’ minds. And he’s the one who sinks in the Sea of Galilee. But he’s also the only one who walked on water. Do you know how Peter got back to the boat? He walked on water again, with Jesus. How much would you give for an experience like that? To be able to walk on water with Jesus. Here’s what I think: sinking is better than sitting. I’d rather have wet clothes than splinters in my butt. I’d rather walk on water with Jesus than stay in the safety of the boat. If you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the
boat.

Take risks. Try big things for God. Dream big dreams and go after them. And here’s the great thing, God honors our attempts to please him and to serve him. Teaching my kids to ride their bikes. The reward of riding a bike far outweighs the risk. Playing it safe is risky.

Now, here’s the final truth that I hope will encourage you to take risks in life. There are no real sacrifices when you follow Christ. Now, I know, the Bible instructs us to give our bodies as living sacrifices. We’re called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross daily, to give up our lives so we can find them. But I don’t think anyone has ever ultimately sacrificed anything for God. Because we always get back more than we give up. And if you get back more than you gave up, in the end, is it really a sacrifice? No, it’s just smart investing. That’s what the faithful servants in the parable did. They made a risk. I mean, think about if the master came back and they had lost his money. I mean, you think he was mad at the guy who just broke even. What if they had lost it? There’s real risk there. But they risked in order to gain. Look at Mark 10:29-30:

“Let me assure you that no one has ever given up anything—home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or property—for love of me and to tell others the Good News, who won't be given back, a hundred times over, homes, brothers,
sisters, mothers, children, and land—with persecutions!”

That is not sacrifice. That is just wise investing. There is an old saying that says “No one ever bet too much on a winning horse.” At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, God is always a winning horse. If you are seeking God and following God and living your life in pursuit of God, there is no way you could ever do anything that God won’t give you back immeasurably more than what you give to him. I know this, the only regrets we’ll have at the end of our lives are that we didn’t seek God more or seek God sooner. That’s it.

You see, there are risks involved in following God’s will for your life. There are risks involved in giving your life to Jesus Christ. But the rewards are infinite. If you’ve never given your life to Christ, I want to challenge you today to take a risk. But listen, the risk is so small in comparison with the
return. Because the return is a life of happiness and peace, a life of excitement and adventure, a life where you make a difference and change the world. The return is you get to be a part of God’s family. The return is knowing that God loves you, that Jesus died for you, and that the Holy Spirit will come to live inside of you. The return is forgiveness for your past, purpose for your present, and the promise of heaven for your future. Take a risk and embrace following Jesus Christ.

You can play life not to lose or you can play life to win. Guess which camp lion chasers are in. Too many of us live our lives as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. But that is not the kind of attitude Jesus says we are supposed to have. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” Matthew 11:12. There is nothing remotely passive about following Christ. Following Christ is not about sitting on the sidelines in life. It is about storming the gates of Hell, with a water pistol if necessary! God is raising up a generation of lion chasers who don’t run away from evil but who have the courage to compete for the kingdom. Take a risk! Chase the lion!

Chase the Lion - Part 4: Embracing Uncertainty

2008-12-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages are inspired by and adapted from the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and the accompanying messages by Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab's mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with it. These are some of the deeds that made Benaiah almost as famous as the Three. He was more honored than the other members of the Thirty, though he was not one of the Three. And David made him commander of his bodyguard.” 2 Samuel 23:20-23

I know one thing for sure, Benaiah didn't plan any of those encounters. They weren’t on his calendar. They weren’t on his dayplanner or his palm pilot. They weren’t on his to do list. I would guess that Benaiah didn’t wake up on the morning of his lion encounter saying, “Today, I think I’ll chase a lion into a pit, jump in the pit with the lion and kill it. Oh yeah, wait a minute, and it will be snowing.”

It is so easy to read about an incident that occurred three thousand years ago and fail to appreciate the element of surprise because we know how the story ends. But what you need to see is that killing the lion was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, it was probably a statistical unlikelihood. Hand-to-hand combat with another human is one thing. Humans have tendencies. You can predict punches and counterpunches with a higher level of certainty. But savage beasts tend to be volatile and unpredictable. Their actions and reactions are less certain. Plus you have to account for topographical, physiological and atmospheric conditions. How heavy was it snowing? Was it packing snow or slippery snow? What was the footing like in the pit? How about visibility? What time of day was it? How hungry was the lion? How well did Benaiah sleep the night before? Did he eat his Wheaties for breakfast that morning?

There are a thousand variables and they all add up to one thing: a high level of uncertainty! Benaia could have run away from the lion. And running away would have reduced uncertainty and increased security. But lion-chasers are not afraid of venturing into the unknown, of embracing uncertainty in life.

And here’s the reality. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in life. Think about the thousands of factors that affect your life: the weather, how other people drive, what your boss or coworkers are going to do or not do, what your children are going to do, what is going to happen with your health, what is going to happen with the economy, who is going to be elected president, what is going to happen to the cost of groceries, whether one of your kids is going to break an arm, whether or not your car breaks down, what your husband or wife does in your marriage. Now, how many of those things do you really have control over? Life is uncertain. Life is often chaotic. What are the middle two letters of the word life? If. Life is filled with contingencies and uncertainty.

Now, you can do one of two things about uncertainty in your life. You can try to reduce uncertainty in your life. You can try to be in absolute control of all the situations and circumstances in your life. You can try to make sure no one in your life does anything unexpected and make sure you have everything planned out in life. And if you do that, you are going to make yourself and everyone around you miserable. Why? Because you are going to be what is called a control freak. The other option is that you embrace uncertainty. You try to plan your life and live life with a measure of control, but you accept the fact that uncertainty is a normal part of life and you embrace it.

Lion chasers embrace uncertainty. So, let’s look at how to embrace uncertainty.

The first thing you’ve got to do to embrace uncertainty is embrace faith. Embracing uncertainty is one dimension of faith. You see, faith always involves a component of the unknown, the uncertain. If we knew everything God was going to do, if we had 100% certainty about who God is and what God is doing and what God wants us to do in life, then there wouldn’t be any room for faith. Faith, by its very definition involves uncertainty. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith in terms of uncertainty: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” There’s kind of an oxymoron going on in that verse. Faith is being sure of what we hope for, being certain of what we do not see. You see, faith is guaranteed uncertainty. It’s having this settled confidence in the midst of not having all the answers, not knowing everything that is going to happen, not having everything worked out for ourselves.

Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his research into quantum theory. His most famous finding was the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Now, I won’t get into all the details of it, but in a nutshell, it stated that, related to quantum particles, the building blocks of the universe, “The imprecise measurement of initial conditions precludes the precise prediction of future outcomes,” or in simple terms, there will always be an element of uncertainty. Life is infinitely uncertain. Now couple that with the fact that God is infinitely complex. Just when we think we have God all figured out, we discover that there is a new dimension to him that we had never even contemplated. So, if life is infinitely uncertain and God is infinitely complex, then all we can do is embrace uncertainty. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “We live by faith, not by sight.” I think a lot of people have the mistaken notion that faith reduces uncer-tainty. Nothing could be further from the truth. Faith doesn’t reduce uncertainty. It embraces it.

Now, I think faith does reduce spiritual uncertainty. We can know that our sins are forgiven; we have been adopted as God’s children; all the promises of God are yes in Christ; every spiritual blessing is ours in Christ; and when we cross the spacetime continuum we’ll spend eternity in a place called Heaven. But here’s the trick. I think it is those spiritual certainties that enable us to embrace circumstantial uncertainties. Faith results in a reduction of spiritual uncertainty, but it often results in an increase in circumstantial uncertainty because God is going to call us to go places and do things that require total reliance upon God. And in many instances, the more faith the more uncertainty!

You see, lion chasers don’t have to know what is coming next, because they know that God knows. They don’t need explanations for every disappointment because they know that God has a plan. Jeremiah 29:11, one of my favorite verses, says,

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Now, notice, God doesn’t say, I’m going to tell you all my plans for you. He just says, “I’ve got plans and they’re good ones, so hang on for the ride.” I can look back over my life for the last fifteen years, and look at all the stuff that has happened in my life, relationships I’ve formed, experiences I’ve had, the way God has worked in my life, and now I can see how they have brought me to this point. Several years ago, LaRissa and I lost a baby in a miscarriage. And just honestly, I never have figured out why God allowed that to happen. But, the important lesson I learned through that experience is that I don't have to understand what God is doing to trust him. To embrace uncertainty, you have to embrace faith, embrace the fact that God is working it out according to his plan.

Then, second, embracing uncertainty means embracing adventure. For the disciples, following Jesus certainly meant an increase in uncertainty, but it also meant an increase in adventure.

“As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.” Mark 1:16-17 (NIV)

They left the security of family and home and job to chase the adventure of a lifetime with Jesus. And Jesus promises them insecurity: “But Jesus said, ‘Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have no home of my own, not even a place to lay my head.’” Matthew 8:20 (NLT). When you follow Christ you never know where you’re going to end up. Anything can happen. All bets are off! That is scary, but it is also exciting. Jesus was promising high levels of uncertainty—the element of surprise. And He delivers on His promises! Following Christ is the ultimate adventure! Tremendous amounts of uncertainty, but tremen-dous amounts of adventure.

Our family likes to go camping. Now, let me tell you, our camping trips are always an adventure. There are massive doses of uncertainty in our camping trips. Several years ago we went on a camping trip to Beaver's Bend State Park in Oklahoma. We got ready to go to bed, and put away our food in our cooler. The cooler latched shut, so I didn't think there would be any problem, and left the cooler sitting out. Ten minutes after we got in the tent, it sounded like WWIII outside. I look outside the tent, and an army of raccoons has arrived to raid our campsite. I look at the cooler, and all I can see is the back end of a raccoon. The rest of him was in the cooler.

So, I scare the racoons off and put away the cooler. But the raccoons continue to fight over the food they managed to get out of the cooler for the next several hours. That is, until about 3 a.m. That's when something else entered the camp, somthing bigger and scarier. We hear a low, rumbling growl, and the raccoons disappear. LaRissa whispers to me, "Whats' that?" To which I respond in a very manly way, "I don't know, but let's be really still and quiet and maybe it will leave us alone." Well, whatever it was, it began to sniff the sides of our tent. Somehow, I deluded myself into thinking that the thin, fabric walls of our tent would protect us from whatever the creature outside was. LaRissa, somewhat hysterically, says, "What should we do? (I should mention at this point that I was sleeping in the middle of the tent, and she was sleeping next to the edge where the critter was)." So, I respond, "Shhh, if we're quiet maybe it won't know we're in here." So, we spent the next several hours praying for dawn. Dawn arrived and the critter was gone.

Uncertainty is what makes camping so much fun. There is something about a camping trip that turns everything into an adventure. You aren’t just eating. You’re adventure eating—you cook your food over the campfire. You aren’t just sleeping. You’re adventure sleeping—you’re in a tent under the stars. You aren’t just walking. You’re adventure walking—it’s called hi-king. When you go camping it turns everything into an adventure! That is precisely what a relationship with Christ does? It turns everything into an adventure. And part of adventure is high levels of uncertainty!

Now, what we often do is focus our energies on telling God what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And repeat ourselves over and over again to make sure God doesn’t miss any of the important details. But look at what happened in Acts 2:1-4"

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

The Day of Pentecost was an unplanned day for the disciples. It’s not like they woke up and said, “Today, I think I’ll speak in a foreign language that I have never learned.” I’m pretty sure the day started out like any other day for the disciples. But here’s the thing, you can’t plan Pentecost. God’s greatest adventures usually aren’t things we’ve got planned. The most unexpected things in our lives are usually the biggest adventures.

Think about it this way, the greatest movies have the highest level of uncertainty. You have romantic uncertainty or dramatic uncertainty or relational uncertainty, but if the movie is going to hold the attention of the audience, there generally is some suspense, a high degree of uncertainty. Uncertainty produces adventure. High levels of uncertainty don’t just make the best movies. High levels of uncertainty make the best lives! So, here’s what you have to do to embrace that uncertainty. You have to be flexible. If you are going to turn uncertainty into adventure, you have to be flexible.

Then, to embrace uncertainty, you chase the wind. Now, chasing the wind is usually an expression for an uncertain or questionable venture. But I want you to look at what Jesus says in Jn. 3: Jesus: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Jesus uses the analogy of the wind to describe the working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people who come to faith in Jesus Christ. You can’t see where the wind is coming from, you can’t tell where it is going, but you can certainly see its effects. In the same way, I can’t tell how or when the Holy Spirit is going to be at work, leading, directing in a person’s life. I can’t predict who is going to be moved by the Spirit at any given time, and I certainly can’t tell you how the Spirit is directing your life or what He is calling you to do in life. But I can definitely see the effects of His activity in people’s lives. And here’s the thing that’s cool about that verse. Jesus doesn’t say, “So it is with the Spirit.” He says, “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” It’s not just that the Spirit is unpredictable. He also produces unpredictability and uncertainty in the lives of God’s people.

Following the direction of the Holy Spirit will result in chasing the wind in your life. You will do stuff you never dreamed you’d do. You will go after dreams you thought were impossible. You will attempt things you never thought you could do. You will accomplish stuff that is humanly impossible. You will go to parts of the world you never would have before. You will eat things, talk to people, do things, experience things you would have never done before, all as you follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit’s direction in your life is not always going to make sense. It’s not always going to be according to your plans. Following God’s direction and God’s Spirit will produce uncertainty in your life. And it’s awesome! Look at what Hebrews 11:8 says about Abraham, “He went without knowing where he was going.” Can I get a witness? Women, you ever feel that way riding with your husband? That’s what I have come to call obedience in the unknown, and that’s what God wants of us. We don’t have all the details. We don’t have it all worked out. There is a high degree of uncertainty. But we know that God has called us to go, so we go.
There are things that we can know in life. We can know to some degree what God’s Spirit is leading us to do, even though we don’t know all the details. And we have to make a decision to follow when we don’t know all the details.

In his book, The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus writes about the names of different animal groups. A group of fish is called a school. Ants are called colonies; bees are called a swarm. Cattle are herds, birds are flocks, and a tribe of lions is a pride. For what it’s worth, a group of buzzards is called a committee! But here’s my personal favorite: a group of rhinos is called a crash.

That name seems so fitting! Believe it or not, a rhino can run about thirty miles per hour which is pretty amazing considering how much weight they are carrying! They are actually faster than squirrels which can run about twenty-six miles per hour.

But here’s the funny thing. Rhinos have terrible eyesight. They can only see about thirty feet in front of themselves. So they are running thirty miles an hour with no idea what’s at thirty-one feet! You would think they’d be timid creatures because they can’t see very far in front of themselves. But God, in his amazingly creative foresight, gave rhinos a big horn on the front of their head.

Now, here’s the lesson from the rhino: “The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There’s a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full of force because of what we do know.” Chase the wind! Chase the lion! Move forward full speed and full force following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I love Deuteronomy 29:29: “There are secret things that belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law.” There are some things that God has not revealed to us. There is uncertainty in life. But we don’t allow uncertainty to cripple us, because we know the one who is in control. There was this old song we sang in church when I was a kid. And it said, “Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.” Who is holding your hand?

Chase the Lion - Part 3: Overcoming Adversity

2008-12-03T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today, we are continuing our series called “Chase the Lion” where we are looking at how God uses challenges, difficulties, and tough circumstances to bring about the life that he wants for us. And it’s based on this passage in the Old Testament about a guy named Benaiah. 2 Samuel 23:22 says, “He chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.”

The day Benaiah stared that lion in the face and wrestled with him in that pit was a tough day. But just a couple of verses later, the Bible tells us that King David made Benaiah the captain of his bodyguard. What better qualification for being a bodyguard than saying, “One snowy day, I chased a lion into a pit, jumped into the pit with the lion and killed it.” So, what seemed like a very bad day to Benaiah becomes the source of what God wants to do in his life in the future. And that’s what this series is all about. It’s about how God wants to use the biggest challenges in your life to bring about the incredible, awesome, amazing life that he has in store for you.

During this seven-week series, we are exploring seven lion chasing skills: defying odds, facing fears, overcoming adversity, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and looking foolish. So, today we’re going to look at overcoming adversity. How do you deal with problems, difficulties, overwhelming situations in life. For Benaiah, a 500 lb. lion was certainly an adversity. Yet, he faced the challenge and overcame the adversity.

Now, in case you haven’t figured this out yet, life is tough. Adversity comes in life. Things don’t always work out the way you planned. Tragedies and heartaches and difficulties come in life. And just because you are a follower of Jesus Christ does not mean you are immune from adversity in life. I am not one of those preachers who will tell you that if you love Jesus and you live the kind of life that pleases him that your life will be free from heartache and you’ll have plenty of money and a nice house and you’ll never get sick and never suffer. No! In fact, following Jesus can be tough. Now, I believe it’s the best life you could possibly have, and I don’t know how people get through the adversities of life without Jesus, but it’s still tough. To quote from the great theologians Poison, “Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its daw-waw-hawn, just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song. Every rose has its thorn.” In fact, Jesus promised that life would be tough. He said, “In this world you will have trouble.” Can you identify with that? In this world you will have trouble. And why is that? Because this ain’t heaven. So, you are going to have adversity, and today we are going to talk about how you overcome adversity.

But before we get started, let me tell you about one of the lion chasers in my life. Almost eight years ago, I moved to north Texas to pastor a church in Sherman, and I rapidly became friends with the associate pastor of our church, Brick James. After my wife, Brick is the very best friend I have ever had in my life. From the moment I first new Brick, he had cancer. He had been diagnosed with malignant melanoma. For the next six years, Brick fought the battle against cancer. But unless he told you he had cancer, you would never know it. Cancer did not define him. He was a happy guy. He loved life and he lived it to its fullest. Brick used to say, “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” And he lived his life that way. Right up until the very end, Brick never let cancer win. He lived life with joy and peace and contentment.

At one point in the progression of his cancer, the cancer had moved to Brick’s brain, and he had surgery to remove the tumor. He had surgery on Monday, and on Sunday, he was sitting in worship, praising God. That day, I thought, what right do I have to complain about anything? Anytime I’m tempted to think about how bad things are, how tough my life is getting, I just think about Brick.

You know, a lot of people going through those kinds of circumstances would have become bitter. Their spirit shrivels until nothing is left but bitterness or anger or depression. But I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody who was a greater encourager or who had a kinder heart or a more positive attitude than Brick.

What is it that enables someone like Brick to overcome that kind of adversity? Here’s what I learned from Brick: who you become is not determined by your circumstances! The outcome of your life is determined by your outlook on life. Your altitude is determined by your attitude. Our greatest problems in life aren’t circumstantial. Our greatest problems are perceptual. It’s your attitude that determines how you handle adversity in life. I can show you people who have been through some horrendous things in life, and yet they have joy and peace in life.

How do you do that? How do you overcome adversity in your life? Well, first, you reframe adversity in your life. You change your attitude. You change your perspective. And you do that by looking at life through the frame of Scripture. You see things the way God sees them. Look, I’m no interior decorator, but I do know this, the type of frame you put around a picture determines what people notice in that picture. The frame determines the focus. If you want to see yourself and your life and your circumstances the way God sees them, you need to look through the frame of Scripture. And when you do that, you’ll begin to see your life differently. Scripture is about reframing.

Let me give you a few examples. Matthew 5:11-12:

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

That’s reframing your problems in the context of eternity. Problems now mean priceless treasure later. The book of Acts tells about the disciples after Jesus had died and rose from the grave and returned to heaven. They were preaching about Jesus and got arrested and told not to speak again in the name of Jesus. But during the night, they are set free by an angel who tells them to go back out and preach again. So, they do that, and the next morning the guards go to look for them and find them defying the orders of the court. So, they arrest them again. And look at Acts 5:40-41:

“They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”

Reframing suffering. Suffering for Jesus is seen as an honor. Now I want you to think of the next verse as a frame around adversity. Most of us don’t like adversity, but if we put a biblical frame around it, we begin to realize that there are some life lessons and some character traits that can only be learned and developed via adversity. In fact, adversity expands our capacity to serve God.

“It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” Philippians
1:29 (NIV)

Now let’s be brutally honest. If you’re anything like me, there are certain passages of Scripture that you sort of wish didn’t make the Bible. You know they’re true, but you wish they weren’t in the Bible! They are hard to swallow and tough to digest! But those are the verses that often help us grow the most.

This is one of those verses. We like the belief part, but the suffering part not so much! Now, here’s the amazing part, the word granted in this verse means “to grant a favor.” It’s like God is saying, “Listen, I owe you a favor. So let me let you suffer.” We tend to see suffering as a necessary evil at best, but Paul calls it a divine favor. And here’s the thing. There is nothing theoretical about this approach to life! Paul is writing these words from a middle-eastern jail cell.

So, what’s the answer? How do you reframe your life? The answer is worship. Worship is the way to see our lives from a different perspective. One time Paul and Silas were preaching about Jesus in the city of Philippi. They get arrested, are beaten, then are placed in a jail cell with their feet bound. If I’m Paul and Silas, I’m physically, emotionally and spiritually spent. I’ve got nothing left to give. My back is bleeding. I’m in a maximum-security cell block, I’m uncomfortable, and I’m just a little ticked at God that he didn’t keep me out of this mess. And that’s why Paul and Silas’s reaction is so incredible. Acts 16:23-25:

“After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.”

If that had been me, it probably would have read, “About midnight Shawn was complaining about his circumstances.” Nine times out of ten, when I am discouraged or depressed or getting beat up by my problems, it’s because I have fixated on my problem or my circumstances. And the answer is for me to zoom out and get some perspective. And the way I zoom out is worship. Here’s the principle: don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. To reframe your problems, you stop focusing on what’s wrong about your circumstances and start focusing on what’s right with God. Paul and Silas made a choice to worship God in spite of their external circumstances. When my problems are greatest, that’s when I need to worship God the most.

So, to overcome adversity, I have to reframe adversity in my life. I have to have a different perspective, and I get that through worship. Then, second, you overcome adversity by letting God remodel you through adversity. Life is just preparation for eternity. This is just the preschool, the training ground. God wants to use adversity in your life to prepare you for eternity. God has a purpose for the problems in your life. Look at Romans 8:28-29:

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son.”

What is God’s purpose for problems in your life? What is God’s goal for your life? Once you become a follower of Jesus Christ, God’s goal for you is that you become just like his son. Now, if God is going to make you just like Jesus, then he’s going to take you through the same things Jesus went through. Did Jesus ever get tired or hungry? Was he ever criticized? Was he ever betrayed and abandoned by his friends? Was he persecuted? Did he ever suffer? Then you can be assured that we will go through the same things.

But the great thing is that God has a purpose in adversity.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4 (NIV)

Not lacking in anything. Wouldn’t you like that for your life? The only way to get there is by facing troubles. Did you know that if you break a bone, that bone goes through an initial period of weakness as it is healing from the break. But our bodies have a miraculous power to heal, and it actually overcompensates so that the bone is actually stronger than it was before the break. Very rarely does a bone break again in the same place because it is thicker and stronger than it was before the break.

So here’s the deal. Sometimes God breaks us where we need to be broken. He fractures the pride and lust and anger in our lives, but he does it to remodel us into His image. And once we heal, we end up stronger than we were to begin with. I wish I could get in shape sitting in a lazy boy watching football. We want to be in shape without the workout. We want to be smart without the homework. We want to be wealthy without the work. And we want spiritual maturity without spiritual disciplines. But it just doesn’t work that way!

There is an old saying: no pain no gain. But, you know, I think some of us operate with a slightly different philosophy of life: no pain no pain. But what we discover is that the path of least resistance is the path of least fruitfulness. The people God uses the most are often the people who have experienced the most adversity.

God wants to use us in incredible and amazing ways to change the world. God wants to give us a life of joy and peace and contentment and adventure and excitement. But to do that, God has to transform us. God is not content to leave us like we are. And I am so thankful. Think about it this way. What if God just left you like you are? What if he never did anything about the selfishness, the pride, the anger, the discouragement, the worry, the doubts in your life? What if he never did anything to overcome the temptations in your life? What if God just left you alone and let you stay the way you are for all eternity? And what if God did that for everybody? If that were the case, then heaven would just be this life forever and forever and forever. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would like it very much.

God loves you and values you enough that he is not content to leave you like you are. And the greatest tool God uses for transforming us, for remodeling our lives, is adversity. 1 Peter 1:7 says,

“These [that is, suffering] have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God values your faith over all the treasure in the world. God values your character over your comfort. He cares more about your long-term potential than your short-term comfort.

I don’t know what kind of adversity you’re facing, but I know that God is in the remodeling business. Instead of asking God to get us out of adversity, maybe we need to make sure we get something out of those adverse situations! There are lessons to be learned and character traits to be developed. And honestly, it is adversity that will present you with the greatest opportunity to prove yourself as a parent, a spouse, a friend, a neighbor, and a leader. Your greatest adversity, your biggest hurt, your greatest failure, your biggest pain is the source of the most amazing things God wants to do in and through your life. Your biggest hurt is most likely the area of your greatest ministry. Look at 2 Corinthians 1:4: “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” If you don’t turn your adversity into ministry, then your pain remains your pain. But if you use it to comfort other people, then your pain becomes someone else’s gain.

Here’s the beautiful thing: God never wastes a hurt. God never wastes a hurt. God uses the adversity in our lives to refine us, to fashion us, to transform us. And God is so amazing that he can use our biggest hurt, our greatest failure, our biggest disaster to be the greatest opportunity in life.
I think all three encounters recorded in 2 Samuel 23—taking on two Moabite warriors, a giant Egyptian and a 500 pound lion—could have ended Benaiah’s life! They were make or break moments! But if it hadn’t have been for those adversities, Benaiah wouldn’t have become captain of David’s bodyguard and he almost certainly wouldn’t have appeared in the pages of Scripture. It was adversity that turned into an opportunity for Benaiah to prove himself as a valiant warrior.

What you see, when you look through the frame of Scripture, is the way God used the adversity to remodel Benaiah. Each adversity remodeled Benaiah as one of David’s mighty men, captain of David’s bodyguard, army commander, and eventually Commander-in-Chief of Israel’s army!

Now, what about you? Where have you been broken? What adversity are you facing right now? Do you have any overwhelming problems? Maybe God is remodeling you. Maybe God is taking the problem you never thought you would be able to overcome and turning it into the greatest opportunity of your life. But that only happens if you give God control of your life and reframe your adversity and let God remodel you.