Compassion, Victims, Offenders, and Johnny Manziel

Compassion or No Compassion?
If you are a sports fan (or even if you aren't) you are probably aware of Johnny Manziel. Last season Manziel became the first Freshmen ever to win college football's highest honor, the Heisman Trophy. Since that time, his life has been a trainwreck. He has been in the tabloids on a consistent basis, making bad decision after bad decision. He has regularly alienated his family, his teammates, his coach, and his fans.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard a sports radio show in which one caller said that he felt compassion for Manziel. The host responded by saying that he felt no compassion for Manziel, since he had been handed a silver platter, and then had made all of these bad decisions on his own.
Is Johnny Manziel worthy of compassion? This question brings up a bigger issue.

Victims or Offenders?
A while ago I was having a conversation with my friend Phil Shahbaz and he made a comment that stayed with me. He said that when people behave badly, they do so because they are acting out of a place of pain. His point was that when we, as church leaders, interacted with people who were rude or angry or condescending, that we needed to step back and recognize that their bad behavior was an opportunity for compassion.
Phil's point might seem obvious to many, but this was not the case with me. While I smiled and nodded, in my heart I disagreed. I thought, "No, we don't sin because we are victims of pain. We sin because we are sinners." After all, I attended The Master's College. I embrace evangelical theology. At the core of what I believe about humanity is the teaching that our primary problem is that we are sinful rebels who have offended God and gone our own way. When we behave badly, we don't reveal that we are victims; we reveal that we are guilty.
The more I thought about Phil's comment (and my reaction to it), the more I began to conclude that it is overly simplistic to conclude that we are simply victims or simply offenders. After all, Phil was not denying that we are sinners. And I was not denying that we have pain that impacts us. But most of us champion one of these realities at the expense of the other.
For the record, this is not just a Christian problem. Every four years we get a solid dose of this debate. I know I am oversimplifying here, but most conservatives say that the problem with society is that people are not taking personal responsibility. People need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, own their mistakes, and stop mooching off others. For the most part, conservatives are harder on crime, and they are less supportive of government intervention in bailing people out of their messes.
On the other hand, liberals tend to say that people find themselves in bad situations because they have been kicked around and received a tough lot in life. They are in favor with giving people more chances, and they support government involvement in helping people who are down on their luck.
So, what does the gospel of Jesus say about this? Are we victims or are we offenders?
Scripture definitely does not paint us as innocent victims of this world. We are all sinners, enemies of God, children of wrath. We all have turned away from God to go our own way. In the garden Adam and Eve willfully chose to sin despite the fact that God had shown nothing but goodness to them. We are not simply victims of our difficult circumstances.

Victims and Offenders?
Not simply victims . . . but we all have certainly been victimized. We live in a broken world, surrounded by broken people. Even those of us who grew up with both of our parents around were still raised by broken and sinful people. We grew up with broken and sinful siblings. We've had broken and sinful teachers, broken and sinful friends, broken and sinful neighbors, and broken and sinful employers. The culture around us assaults us with temptations toward further brokenness. Some people in our world have been horrifically victimized through molestation or physical abuse at the hands of those who should have protected them. We all have experienced the crippling pain of loneliness and rejection and harsh words. While we are not simply victims, it does us very little good to overlook the fact that we all have pain.
Through the gospel, Jesus comes to us not only to bear our personal sins, but to bear all of our pain. He does not simply make of innocent before God, but he gives us life in God. He does not simply promise us a future in which we will no longer be guilty, but a future in which we will have no more pain and death, and in which every tear will be wiped away. Jesus acknowledges both our guilt and our pain and he sets us free from both.

Unqualified Compassion
On a practical level, this reality has huge implications not only for how we think of our own pain and sin, but also in how we relate to others. We all experience times when others behave badly toward us. If we see those people simply as victims, then we will dehumanize them by robbing them of the chance to grow and take responsibility for their actions. If we see people simply as offenders, then we will have no compassion on them, since their bad behavior is all their own fault. But if we embrace the gospel, something profound happens. We are able to have compassion on others, even while we hold them responsible for their actions. I can believe that those who hurt me are wrong and sinful. And yet I have compassion that their pain is so deep that they would lash out at me.
As a Christian I can have compassion for prisoners, even when they are guilty of crimes. I can have compassion on the divorced man, even if he was unfaithful. I can have compassion on the pregnant teenager, even while believing that she made bad choices. Compassion is not reserved for the innocent, but can be freely given to all.
Thank God that compassion is not reserved for innocent victims. After all, Christ compassionately came to die for sinners. He freely showed us compassion, and yet he did not dehumanize us by excusing our decisions. We can do the same. The gospel allows us to give people the dignity of believing that their actions have true significance, but it also sets us free to show compassion even to those who exploit their freedom by hurting themselves and others.
With Jesus, compassion is unqualified. It is offered to all. And the more that we realize that we are recipients of divine compassion, the more that we will be set free to offer that compassion to others.

Is Gender Real?

On Monday, August 12^th, California became the first state to pass a law allowing K-12 students in public schools to access whichever restroom and locker room they want. The law will also allow students to choose whether they want to play girls’ sports or boys’ sports based on their self-perception and regardless of their birth gender.

Making the Climb

Imagine a ten year-old girl standing before a rock wall. On the rock wall are 50 handholds, intended to assist her in the ascent. Her gym teacher says to her, "Go ahead and climb." But then, before she begins, the gym teacher says, "Hold on a moment. I am pretty sure some of those handholds are not reliable. They look like they could support your weight, but they will simply fall off if you grab them. I don't want you to be fooled by them, so I am going to go ahead and remove them."

After removing the faulty handholds, the teacher says, "Now we're ready. Go ahead." But then suddenly says, "Hold on. If some of those handholds were unreliable, I wonder if any of them are solid. I don't want you to count on a handhold when it won't support you. So, here is what we will do: I will remove all the handholds. That way you won't be fooled by any of them. You won't assume that there is anything upon which you can rely." Then, after removing the rest of the handholds, the teacher turns to the girl and says, "Okay, now get climbing."

The above illustration could be applied to the way our culture approaches many issues. We enjoy deconstruction. We like to look at assumptions and tear them down so that we can start from scratch. We like to question even our most sacred cows. This applies to religions, politics, the nature of humanity, and just about everything else. While there is something positive about questioning assumptions, tearing down is destructive if it is not followed with a sense of rebuilding. We want to remove the unreliable handholds, but we still need handholds. If nothing is solid, then we cannot climb.

I think this illustration has special significance for the new law concerning transgender students. While its intent is to accommodate students who feel disenfranchised, it does this at a steep price. It tells children that gender is not a real thing.

Given or Chosen?

Imagine that I said to you, “I am technically white, but I feel like in the deepest part of me I am black. So, I want to be able to mark ‘African-American’ on my job applications and I want to be free to apply for scholarships that are offered to minorities.” I would imagine that you (and everyone in America) would be offended by this. Rightfully so. Then, if I said, “Why can’t I just decide that I am not really white?” you would confront me with the objective realities about my ethnicity. I can’t just change my race by a decision of my will. The reason is that race is something real, not something that is perceived.

This new California law, in essence, says that gender is not real because it can be changed by the decision of the will. If it is no longer useful to us then we can discard it like an outfit that no longer fits. If a boy says, "I want to be treated like a girl," what do we say? If we took the above logic from the race example, we would say, "I understand that you may feel like a girl, but the reality is that you are a boy. There are certain objective realities outside of yourself that inform us of this reality. I am willing to talk to you about how you are feeling, but we are going to treat you like a boy because that is what you are." However, in the logic of this new law, we now say, "If you want to be treated like a girl, then we will treat you like a girl." The not-so-subtle message is that gender is utterly incidental to who we are. It was not given to us. It is chosen by us.

Actually, what I just said is not completely accurate. The message is not that gender doesn't matter. Gender can matter . . . if a person decides that it matters. If being a boy matters to a child, then he can fully enjoy being a boy. If a girl is enthusiastic about being a girl, then she is free to act in light of this. Boys and girls are both welcome to make gender important to themselves. They are also open to define masculinity and femininity however they wish. This reflects the broader treatment of objective truth of our Western culture. Is gender important? Only if it is important to you.

Is Gender Real?

Over the years, there certainly have been unhelpful stereotypes about men and women. There have been assumptions that have caused damage and confusion. Those should be torn down. They are unstable handholds that will not help children understand reality. But we are now in the process of removing all the handholds. 

We started by saying, "Don't trust every assumption about gender. There is nothing strange about a boy writing poetry. There is nothing wrong with a girl liking sports. Some of those past assumptions are not helpful." But now we are saying, "There is nothing you can trust when it comes to gender. There is no starting point. You simply start from scratch and decide how you think gender fits into your life." This is the same as removing all the handholds and then asking the child to climb the wall.

Are we really at the point of concluding that there is nothing we can objectively say about masculinity and femininity? If so, then this is very sad. This is a disservice to our children. We are not helping them by removing faulty handholds unless we replace them with something solid. We need to be able to say, "This is what it means to be a man, and this is what it means to be a woman." Otherwise we have told them that gender is not a real thing.

Responding

Many people have responded to this new law with fear that this will put students (especially young girls) in vulnerable positions. I share in this concern. I think voices need to be heard. There needs to be compassion for children wrestling with issues about their sexuality, but there also needs to be protection for students whose privacy would be violated through this law allowance.

But while I think one response is to step in the gap for vulnerable students, I think a door is opened for another response. Those of us who are Christians may end up finding ourselves as some of the few in our culture with something solid to say about masculinity and femininity. We don't want to erect unreliable hand holds just to have something to say, but through God's Word we are given a picture of God-given gender. We could end up being unique in our culture by presenting a solid and beautiful picture of how God created men and women as equal-yet-different creatures who bear his image.

In our current setting, it is all the more important that we give our children a solid understanding of manhood and womanhood. They certainly will not get this by default in our current cultural setting. A lot needs to be said about this, but I don't want to make this post so long that it is unreadable (hopefully I haven't already done this). I want to follow up with some specific thoughts about what Scripture says on this subject. But for now, I want to warn that the removal of deceptive handholds is only helpful is we can point to other handholds and say, "There! You can rely on that fully, and it will never crumble under your weight!"

You Asked: Questions on the Holy Spirit, Part 2

This is the second of two posts, following up our Deeper event on the Holy Spirit. In the previous post I gave some answers to five questions that we were not able to address in the Q&A time. Here now are some answers to five more. Also, I am again including the video of the event. If you didn't attend, watching it will give you some context (and also will hopefully be an enjoyable experience).


Deeper #4 from Life Bible Fellowship Church on Vimeo.

1. If Jesus was 100% God, then why did he need the Holy Spirit to empower him?
During the Deeper event, we talked about the fact that the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus throughout his life. In Matthew 3:16 the Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove. In Luke 4:17-21 Jesus says that the Spirit of God has anointed him to proclaim the good news of God to the broken and needy. John 3:34-35 says of Jesus, "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit." Jesus himself credited the Holy Spirit with the miracles that he did (Matthew 12:28). The Spirit clearly empowered Jesus during his life.
But why would Jesus, the eternal Son of God, need the Holy Spirit. The answer is both simple and complex. He needed the Spirit because he was human. That is simple enough. When Jesus took on humanity, he became like us in each way (Hebrews 2:14-18). As a man he became utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit for the fulfillment of his calling.
Many of us, however, want to cry out, "But he was God! Why would God need God?!" This just reflects the mystery and the wonder of the incarnation of Jesus. He didn't simply look like a human being. He WAS a human being. He took on full humanity. He modeled for us the Spirit-led life. And, food for thought, if the Son of God was dependent on the Spirit in order to fulfill his calling, how much more should we cry out in dependence on the Spirit for what God has called us to do!

2. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
We need to think of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in two senses. (1) There was an event in which the Spirit baptized the church. (2) Anyone who comes to Christ is individually baptized by the Holy Spirit.
(1) In Acts
2 the baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place on a macro-level. He comes upon believers and they are miraculously empowered and transformed. This is the event to which Jesus pointed when he said in Acts 1:5, "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Jesus also seems to prefigure this event in John 20:22: "And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" The Spirit, at Pentecost, came upon believers in order to indwell them forever.
(2) Many people came to Christ after Pentecost, but they did not miss out on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They missed the event of the Spirit's coming in power, but upon their conversion the Spirit came upon each of them. We see this happen from time to time in the book of Acts (8:15, 10:44, 19:5-6). And throughout the New Testament we are told that the Spirit indwells all believers.
This brings us to a point of definition. What exactly is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? In short, it refers to when the Spirit comes to indwell a believer, making them new and sealing their adoption into the family of God. At this point the believer is given spiritual gifts and empowered for boldness and godly living.
Some Christians believe that there is a "second blessing" related to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In short, they believe that a person becomes a believer and receives the Holy Spirit, but then later on the Holy Spirit comes upon them in power and seals their conversion. He gives them powerful spiritual gifts or brings dramatic change. This just doesn't seem to be something that Scripture supports. Certainly we do see plenty of cases when someone will have a post-conversion event that brings dramatic change into their lives, but we do not receive the Spirit in parts. Upon salvation, we receive him in full. We then live lives that are fully reliant on him, not waiting for him to come in a greater way in the future.
While I want to be respectful to other Christians who believe in the second blessing, I also want to give a warning. Those who embrace the idea of a second blessing sometimes also embrace the idea that the Spirit's presence in believers' lives is always accompanied by sign gifts, such as speaking in tongues. This is simply unbiblical. Not all believers have the gift of tongues. No believer has every spiritual gift. God does as he pleases in this area. We must not fall into the trap of looking to a specific gift of the Spirit in order to validate his presence. The greatest sign of the Spirit's presence if the fruit he brings (Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 5:1-21), not miraculous gifts.

3. What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
In Matthew 12, Jesus speaks of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and says that it is the sin that will not be forgiven in this age, or in the age to come. Some people have said that this sin is suicide. Others have said that it is simply rejecting Christ. What is the sin and can it be committed today?
For starters, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not suicide. Suicide is nowhere in the context when Jesus speaks of the unpardonable sin. Suicide is certainly wrong. It is a selfish decision driven by despair. When someone who seems to be a Christian commits suicide, it shakes us. But it would not be right to conclude that a person who commits suicide "loses" their salvation. It may make us question what was going on in their heart, but it is a never identified as an unpardonable sin.
In the context of Matthew 12 (as well as Mark 3 and Luke 11) Jesus is speaking to Pharisees who accuse Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Satan. When they make this accusation, Jesus says that they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they saw the work of the Holy Spirit through him, and they identified it as satanic. But why would this sin be unpardonable? Probably because it was the point of no return. If they were going to come face to face with the work of the Holy Spirit and reject it as satanic, they were too far gone to return. It seems unlikely that Jesus was saying that if they repent and cry out for forgiveness, it will never be given.
But are we in danger of committing the unpardonable sin today? In one sense, probably not. Jesus seems to speak of it as something specific to his time, when people saw the Son of God doing the works of the Spirit. In another sense, though, there is a valid warning for us. The Pharisees were filled with competitive jealousy for Jesus, and so they called his works satanic. Likewise, Christians can be filled with jealousy against other "successful" Christians and ascribe their success to Satan. May we all be wary of putting ourselves in a position where we could be attributing the work of the Spirit to Satan. None of us want to go down that road.

4. When Jesus was on the cross, crying out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", did the Holy Spirit leave him?
This is a tricky one. I think we need to plead ignorance on a large part of what was going on during this time. When we read this, many of us conclude that the Father turned his face away from Jesus. While this may be the case, Scripture does not say this. Many of us might conclude that the Spirit departed from Jesus. Again, Scripture does not say this.
So, what was going on and why did Jesus say this? Let's start with what we do know.
While the cross and atonement are always debated, Scripture teaches that Jesus bore the wrath of God on the cross. He was punished for the sins of humanity. Does this mean that during those hours on the cross the Father and the Spirit turned away from Jesus? While this is possible, this is never explicitly said.
When Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he is quoting David from Psalm 22. In Psalm 22 David cries out to God in a time of great danger. He cries out that God has forsaken him, but it doesn't seem appropriate to conclude that, when David cried that, the Father had turned his face away from him and the Spirit had departed from him. David was simply looking at the horror of his situation--enemies closing in on him, friends abandoning him, physical pain imminent--and he wondered where God was. When Jesus was on the cross, his enemies had closed in on him, his friends had abandoned him, and he was experiencing excruciating pain. By all accounts, God had forsaken him. Instead of rescuing his servant, he had given him over to his enemies. Just as every human being has experienced the pain and horror of abandonment, Jesus was truly abandoned on the cross.
Again, this is tricky. I don't think we can be dogmatic that the Father turned his face away or that the Spirit left him. I think we can conclude that he bore the full weight of our sins, and that he experienced the full weight of being abandoned by everyone who could help him--including God himself.
While we can't know everything that went on while Jesus was on the cross, we can be confident that he carried the weight of all our sins and all our fears. He finished the work that was necessary to bring us to God. He was abandoned so that we could be included in God's family.

5. Does the Holy Spirit convict unbelievers?
The Spirit has always been at work. He indwells believers, but he is also at work in the world. In fact, he works to draw unbelievers to Jesus. When Jesus predicted the coming of the Spirit, he said, "When he comes, he will convict the world about sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). The Spirit not only teaches and comforts believers. He convicts the world. While he doesn't indwell unbelievers, he is at work glorifying Christ to all the world.
So, if you are praying for someone who is an unbeliever, you can pray that the Spirit will convict him or her of sin and righteousness and judgment. You can pray that God will draw them to himself through his Spirit. While the Spirit dwells with believers in a special way, his work is much broader than us.

I hope these answers have helped. Feel free to interact, ask follow-ups, disagree, and engage in any way. The Spirit is at work in and through us. He is more powerful, more comforting, and more present than we realize. The more we keep in step with him, the more we will experience the risen life that Jesus brings.

Millennials Leaving Church, and the Nature of Church

Every once in a while some writes something that gets the entire blogosphere moving. This happened about a week ago when Rachel Held Evans wrote a post called Why Millennials are Leaving the Church. Evans did not claim to have the final word on the subject, but she cites some specific reasons why she believes that millennials are leaving churches, and what can be done. She treads some familiar ground, saying that millennials want church not to be about do's and don'ts, not about culture wars, not about excluding people, and not about squelching those with tough questions.
I personally, as a 35 year-old, resonate with many of these things. I don't think that church should be about impersonal morality. I think the calling of the church is to engage with the culture instead of retreating from it or combating it. I believe all should be welcome at church. And I believe that we should engage with difficult questions.
At the same time, there is an assumption behind the article that I think is very telling, and I would like to talk about it in this post.
For starters, this post is not meant to answer in full the question, "Why are millennials leaving the church?" There is no single answer. There are a variety of reasons why anyone leaves any church. Some of us will agree or disagree with the conclusions and suggestions of Held Evans (Trevin Wax wrote a post in response that I thought was very helpful).

Is Consumerism a Forgone Conclusion?
At some level the conclusions of Held Evans make the assumption that people relate to the church as customers. The church is an organization, run by pastors and elders and boards and priests, and then people attend as patrons. While past patrons may have been satisfied with contemporary music, coffee bars, and culture wars, the younger patrons are not. Therefore we need to rethink our product (or at least the presentation of our product).
I am all for creativity and evaluation. But I want to challenge the implicit assumption that church practices should be driven by the customer. We can be consumer-driven in many ways. More people will come if we just give them the music they want. More people will come if we have the right kids program. More people will come if we stop talking about hell. More people will come if we provide free coffee and a Starbucks environment.
As a church leader, I know how easy it is to be driven by these things. But we can also be consumer-driven by the things mentioned by Held Evans. More young people will come if we just sound more politically liberal than conservative. More young people will come if we talk about social justice and environmentalism. More young people will come if we downplay sexual ethics and talk more about the poor.
It is not a step forward if we trade one form of Christian consumerism for another.
Now, should the church be more involved in caring for creation, meeting the needs of the poor, and giving a holistic view of holiness? Absolutely. But not because millennials want it.
In fact, I think it borders on arrogance when any of us concludes that what we really want is what Jesus wants, while others are settling for something less. Jesus calls us to die to ourselves. He calls us to profound humility and brokenness. He calls us to recognize our own darkness and desperation. I don't think any of us fully want that. Part of us does, but a big part of us is repulsed by this. We only respond to this call by God's grace. We all must be careful not to overestimate the nobility of our own desires.

What is the Church?
Going along with the evaluation of consumerism, we must ask what the nature of the church is. When I as a Christian say, "The church is boring/self-consumed/mis-directed/apostate/etc." what exactly am I talking about? What is the church? A building is not a church. And a meeting on Sunday mornings is not the church. Biblically speaking, WE are the church. Believers are the church. So if the church has problems (and she surely does), then the problem is not theirs. The problem is ours. We must all own the church with all her wonder and all her failures. The church is us. I am a part of it, even if I choose to step back critique it.
In all of this, I don't want to communicate that there is not a significant responsibility given to church leaders. As a pastor, I see myself as hugely responsible for the tone at Life Bible Fellowship Church. All of my fellow pastors and elders feel the same. We are the leaders. We organize the programs. We preach the sermons. We make decisions. The problems at the church should be especially felt by those in charge.
At the same time, I want to challenge the idea that any of us would look at the church and say, for example, "They don't care for the poor." Even if this was true, and no one in the church was caring for the poor . . . that means that the person making the critique is also not caring for the poor. If you have a heart for the poor, or sex slaves, or unborn children, or God's creation, use your gifts to serve the church and the community. Very few church leaders will be anything but thrilled if congregants initiate godly activities. Sometimes they will turn into formal church programs and sometimes they won't. But if you are a believer, then you are part of the church. The church is not them. The church is us. So listen to the voice of the Spirit and step forward to follow his lead. Start praying, start serving, start discipling, start organizing. Help the church to be what she is called to be.
Again, this is not to say that leaders do not bear responsibility, and it is not to minimize the failure of leaders. Truth me, we feel that weight. But forward movement happens not when people leave because the church is not living up to their standards. Forward movement happens when God's people own God's calling not only for their own lives, but for the church as a whole.

A Warning about Being Critical
We all know that criticism can be constructive or destructive. I don't want to tell any of us to stop being critical. We should be bothered by sin and apathy in the church. But I do want to give a warning for any of us who tend to be critical.
As I said before, I am 35 years old. To some of you, that is old. To others of you, that is young. But I just want to say that at 35 I am already far less critical of other people and other churches than I was 5 years ago. And I am significantly less critical than I was ten years go. This is not to say that we automatically become less critical when we grow older, but age can bring perspective. And perspective often softens us.
As a younger man, I was very discontent about the church. As a young youth pastor I wanted us to be far bolder, do far for in the community, be far more connected to other churches, and be far more generous than we were. In my later 20s I still felt a great discontent while I was a college pastor. I wanted the church to be less partisan with politics (something I still want) and to be far more overtly compassionate to unbelievers. I wanted people to get off their rears and start serving, praying, and evangelizing.
Age can bring complacency, and that is not good. It is good for younger people to bring energy and clarity to the church. As we age, we can focus on our own lives and families and budgets and lose sight of the bigger mission of the church. The fresh energy and perspective is welcome. I am not asking millennials to stop being passionate or stop being critical. I am simply saying that you are likely to be more compassionate and less critical at a later stage of life.
If you are bothered by young families who seem to settle into suburbia and talk only of swimming lessons and square footage . . . good! We should be more concerned with the kingdom. But realize that child-raising can be consuming and that it is a high calling and that it can tend to exhaust those doing it.
If you are bothered by people who don't give generously . . . good! We all need to be challenged on that. But please realize that the older you get, the more you have dependents and commitments that demand from you financially. This doesn't excuse greed or complacency, but we should all seek to be understanding and compassionate. When you see a lack of financial generosity in others, practice generosity in heart toward them.
None of us should give in to complacency. But don't throw in the towel when you see complacency in others. Follow the voice on the Spirit in your own life. And he is not calling you to tear down or to abandon. He is calling you to build up and serve.

Don't Waste It!
If you are young and single, or married with no children, just realize that you are more uniquely suited to serve Jesus than anyone else in your church. It is much easier for you to go downtown and serve the poor, to go on foreign mission trips, to engage in campus ministry, to spend late nights discipling younger people. Take advantage of this! Serve Jesus and his church be making the most of your current setting! Everyone will benefit from this.
As someone who is not far out of the millennial group, I just want to encourage those who are millennials: Don't spend this amazing and unique time in life by sitting on the sidelines criticizing. Engage fully. Use your gifts. Serve Jesus and his people. And do your best to show compassion to those who seem to be missing out on the big mission of God. Chances are, in a few years you will find yourself battling the same apathy and complacency that now seems so repugnant.

Once again, don't take this as the final word on this big question. Just take it as one (important) factor that should be present in this discussion.

The Demands of Idols

This past Sunday at Life Bible Fellowship Church, Pastor Gary Keith spoke on the acts of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21). One of the acts of the flesh is idolatry. As he spoke, the concept of idolatry really stuck with me.
Today very few of us bow down before pieces of wood or stone or gold. The whole concept seems silly to us. So, we may feel convicted when Paul talks about sexual immorality, jealousy, malice, or drunkenness. But when he speaks of idolatry, we get a pass.
Or do we?
In his book Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller says this:

The Bible often speaks of idols using the religious metaphor. God should be our true Savior, but we look to personal achievement or financial prosperity to give us the peace and security we need. Idols give us a sense of being in control, and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares. What do we fear the most? What if we lost it, would make life not worth living? We make "sacrifices" to appease and please our gods, who we believe will protect us. We look to our idols to provide us with a sense of confidence and safety.

For me, the most striking part of this quotation is when he says that we make sacrifices to appease and please our idols. Gods demand sacrifices. Throughout the Old Testament, and in many religions throughout history, animals have been sacrificed in order to appease the gods. When we think of an idol as something that demands a sacrifice, we can more easily identify the idols of our hearts.

If my idol is money, then I am willing to sacrifice my integrity in order to rake it in. I will cut corners, cheat on my taxes, and embezzle from my company. I will sacrifice the needs of my church or people who have run into hard times because I need the money for myself.
If my idol is success, then I am willing to sacrifice my relationships with loved ones in order to climb the ladder. I will work non-stop, compete with everyone, and neglect my family in order to fill my tank with the accolades that come along with being successful.
If my idol is my family, then I am willing to sacrifice the broader world in order to give them everything possible. Involvement in church and in God's work will take a back seat to recitals, sporting events, and other activities. The great irony of this idol is that it is deceptively selfish. We tell ourselves that we are putting our family first, but it is really a way for us to fill our own tank at their expense. By placing too high a value on our family we end up ruining it.
If my idol is the approval of others, then I will sacrifice truth and authenticity in order to get it. I won't tell anyone that they are wrong. I will smile and nod and approve and reinforce. I will sacrifice even my own identity so that this god can give me the approval for which I so desperately crave.
Idolatry is not a problem of the past or of tribal communities. It is a problem for all of us.
What are your idols? And what sacrifices have you offered to them?

The great news when we come to the gospel is not that God doesn't demand a sacrifice, but instead that he himself has provided the sacrifice that he demands. He sent his Son in order to fulfill all that he requires. The true God, the one and only, invites us to a peace-filled relationship based on the sacrifice that Jesus offered for us all. This is why he is the only God worthy of trust and worship.

Jerry, Jim, and Justification

Today I was listening to a sports talk show called Max and Marcellus, and I heard a conversation that captured my attention. The co-hosts were talking about Jerry Buss (the former Lakers owner) and his son Jim Buss, who is currently guiding the Laker franchise.

Jerry Buss was one of the most successful owners in sports history. Max and Marcellus were discussing the fact that, even though Jim Buss has been involved with Laker management during a number of championship teams, he will only receive credit for what he accomplishes after his father's death (which took place this past February).
You can listen to the conversation here, with the pertinent conversation taking place from about 25:30 to 26:45.
Max said this about Jim Buss: "The tragedy for him is that he will only be judged on what he does without his father. So if he wants to validate his existence, he had to wait for the person he loved most in the world to die." He then lamented the difficult situation this creates for Jim Buss. He wants to grieve his father's death, but he also wants to validate his existence. This is a deep conflict because, as Max went on to say, "There has to be a wish somewhere in you--I want to show everybody what I'm worth."

I thought the comments were poignant. They apply not just to sports, but to all of life. We all want validation. We all want to matter. We all want to prove what we are worth. We all long to have our existence justified.
But what if your existence can only be justified through the death of someone else?
I couldn't help but revel in the irony. The conclusion was that it is up to each of us to justify our existence. And in some cases, the justification requires the death of another. The gospel of Jesus is all about justification. But the message is not about someone dying so that we could justify ourselves. The message is about someone dying so that, through him, we can be justified. He justifies us, and that justification comes only through his death.

Justification is much deeper than simply forgiveness. Justification gives us access to God. It allows us to approach God's throne with boldness instead of cowering in fear. Romans 5:1-2 says, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. True justification is not simply being able to stand before other people and feel good about ourselves. True justification is when God is okay with us, and when we can stand before him without shame.
But Max is absolutely right about the fact that we all, deep down inside, long to be validated. We long to be shown to be worth something. We long to be valuable. We long to matter. The gospel of Jesus tells us that we matter, but not because we have accomplished something great. We have not proven ourselves to be especially smart or talented or diligent or virtuous. Quite the opposite. The gospel of Jesus tells us that we matter because God has made us matter. We can only enjoy justification if we plunge into the humble pie of grace. We shouldn't matter--but we do!

Whether we find ourselves in the shadow of someone great, or whether we are simply trying to make our way in the world, we all long for justification. I pray that we can all experience this justification that is only given, and never earned.

Questioning the Old Testament: Ananias and Sapphia, Life after Death, and Judgment on the Sins of Christians

I wrote a previous post that followed up on a Deeper event at Life Bible Fellowship Church. The event was about the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. You can listen to it in its entirety through our podcast, either through iTunes or on our website. The event ended with a Question/Answer time, and I am blogging about some of the questions that we didn't get to. I hit the biggest (and most common) question in the previous post. In this post, I will hit three others.

Assuming that Ananias and Sapphira were believers, did they lost their salvation when they were judged?
In order to demonstrate the continuity between the OT and NT, I mentioned that judgments by God show up in the NT also. Ananias and Sapphira (in Acts 5) are a prime example of this. In the story, Ananias and Sapphira sell their property and give a portion of the price to the church. There was nothing wrong with them only giving a portion of what they received. The problem was that they deceptively said that they were giving the whole price. They were bringing deceit into Jesus' church, and pumping themselves up falsely.
The Holy Spirit allows Peter to discern their deceit, and both Ananias and Sapphira are struck dead instantly.
So, the question is whether or not they "lost their salvation." This begs the bigger question about whether or not a person can lose their salvation.
We all know people who at one time appeared to be Christians. Then, later on in life they live in such a way that makes us wonder if they are truly Christians. Others live in open defiance of God and don't even claim to be Christians any more. What do you conclude about these people? There are three basic options:
1. They were Christians at one point, and now they are not Christians. They "lost" their salvation.
2. They were Christians and they are still Christians. Once you believe in Jesus, nothing can undo that, even if you openly deny believing in Jesus.
3. They appeared to be Christians, but now they have revealed that they are not Christians.
Without making this too long, I believe that the third option is the most biblical. Speaking of "losing" your salvation is a strange concept. We come to God only by his grace. We receive salvation as a gift. It seems odd that, since we did nothing in order to gain our salvation, we could do something that would allow us to lose it. At the same time, it is thoroughly unbiblical to call someone a Christian when they themselves are not even claiming to be a Christian.
So, that said, back to Ananias and Sapphira. In this case, we have to plead ignorance to some extent. The story is not about the nature of salvation. It is about the purity of the church and the seriousness of sin within the church. Ananias and Sapphira may have been true believers who sinned and ended their lives badly. They would not be the first. One of the best kings in the OT (Uzziah) was judged by God and struck with leprosy late in life. Other believers throughout history have made bad decisions that lead to their death. This does not mean that they were sent to hell.
When we talk about Ananias and Sapphira, we might be tempted to say, "Their sin at the end of their life did not undercut their godly lives before then." This is the wrong way to think about the issue. The better statement would be, "Jesus died for the sins of his people. That covers the sins in the past, the sins in the present, and the sins in the future. If you die as a result of a sin that you commit, that sin is not somehow outside of the covering sacrifice of Jesus."

Why does the Old Testament say so little about the afterlife?

The New Testament gives us a good amount of information about what we can anticipate after death. Believers anticipate being "with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8) in a place that is "much better by far" (Philippians 1:23). In Revelation we see scenes of believers in the presence of God, worshiping and enjoying rest and comfort. And the final Christian hope is that our bodies will be raised, just as Jesus' body was raised. We will be given new, redeemed bodies and we will live on a new, redeemed earth in the presence of God forever.
The Old Testament is a bit more fuzzy on its own. In fact, in Jesus' day the Jews were divided. The conservatives, the Pharisees, believed that there would be a final resurrection. The liberals, the Sadducees, believed that there was no afterlife. This debate comes to the forefront in at least two passages (Matthew 22: 23-33 and Acts 23:6-10).
Jesus clearly affirms that there is life after death. There is a resurrection to come. While it doesn't seem quite fair to say that the OT is clear on this, there are hints about it. Job 19:27, Isaiah 26:19, and Daniel 12:2 are some of the most prominent.
So, why was it not more clearly laid out? Again, we have to plead a bit of ignorance. There have been many things that were not revealed to the patriarchs. Then there were many things that were not revealed to the Israelites. Then there were many things that were not revealed to the prophets. Then there were many things that were not revealed to the apostles. There are many things that are not revealed to us. God has always revealed himself, but he has done so gradually. He knows what we need to know in order to trust him.
As a quick note, Jesus seemed to think that the Jews should have known that there was a resurrection. He says that the Sadducees know neither the Scripture nor the power of God when they deny the resurrection. We may think that the OT is fuzzy on this, but Jesus thought it was clear enough for people to understand.

As Christians we still sin. What judgment is there for the sins of Christians?
As part of the Deeper event, I talked about the fact that people in the Old Testament were not saved from their sins by obeying the law. They were not forgiven through the sacrifices. They were saved, ultimately, through faith in God. And each believer (OT or NT) only receives forgiveness from sins through the sacrifice of Jesus. So, all the sins of OT believers were judged when Jesus died for them.
But what about us? For those of us living on the other side of the cross, the case is the same. Our sins, past and present and future, are all forgiven because Jesus died for them on the cross. This does not simply mean that Jesus was judged for the sins that we committed as non-Christians. He also died for the sins that we would (and will) commit as Christians.
This is the glory of the cross. It revealed God's grace and his justice. When Jesus returns there will be a final judgment. Every person's sin demands judgment. We will either be judged for our own sins, or our sins will be judged at the cross. All believers, before Christ or after Christ, are free from the penalty of our sins because Jesus was judged for all of them!

I thought I would include one more somewhat-mystifying question:
Do you mean that we should not put criminals in prison or have our soldiers fight against evil?
This question is odd to me. I am not sure where it came from. My best guess is that this comes as a result of the teaching that God is the ultimate judge. He promises to avenge, so that we don't have to. The context of this point was to show that it is not bad news that God judges sin. It is good news. We don't have to take revenge because God is the judge.
This does not mean that we don't still have laws, punishments, and order in our society. This is an important distinction between the OT and the NT. In the OT, God's people were a nation. They had their own laws, borders, army, and legislative system. In the NT, God's people are the church. In some sense we have our own sphere and domain, but in another sense we live as citizens of our individual cities and states and countries. So then, the question is how we should conduct ourselves as citizens of God's kingdom, but also as citizens of the United States (or any other earthly nation).
Just a quick plug. We did a series called "American Christian or Christian American" at Life Bible Fellowship Church, and we covered this subject through the 10-week series. You can check it out in our sermon archives. The series took place in September-November of 2012.
In short, does God's promise to be the final judge mean that Christians should oppose prisons, war, the death penalty, etc.? The answer is "not necessarily." Christians should not always be in favor of war, nor should we always be in favor of the death penalty or other criminal punishments. God is a God of order. He is not opposed to people looking to set up order. A necessary component of order in a fallen world is punishments and even the instigation of death (through war or other means).
This is messy and we must take each case on its own. In the bigger picture, though, we should differentiate between a desire for order and justice and a desire for revenge and retaliation. As a Christian, I want criminals to be caught and punished. But I am free from agony if this doesn't happen. Why? Because God will judge. As a Christian, I want those who have wronged me to be held accountable and experience appropriate consequences. But I have been given the freedom to proceed in life if they never admit their wrongs and never suffer consequences. Why? Because God is just and he will take care of it.
Christians have a valuable role in society as lawmakers, police officers, soldiers, and judges. But we all proceed in our lives, seeking a semblance of order and justice, knowing that God is the ultimate judge and that this is a sobering and hope-giving reality.

Questioning the Old Testament: The Children Punished for the Parents' Sin

This past Sunday we had our fourth Deeper event at Life Bible Fellowship Church. This one revolved around the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The two key questions were
(1) Is the God of the Old Testament the same God that Jesus revealed?
(2) Is the path to God revealed in the Old Testament the same path that is revealed in the New Testament.
We finished with a Question/Answer time, and I was not able to get to all the questions. For the next few posts, I will be answering some of the remaining questions.
Here is the question for this post:
In reference to Exodus 34:6-7, why would God punish someone for someone else's sin?
Here is the text for Exodus 34:6-7: And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation."

There are multiple instances in the Old Testament of a person's sins having consequences for other people. Whole families or nations are punished because of the actions of a father or a king or a small group of people. This seems unjust to us. Shouldn't people simply be punished for their own sins? Why should someone else's sin impact me?
There are a few factors that can help us to understand this reality.
1. No man is an island. Throughout both the Old and the New Testaments is the idea that people's actions impact others, for better or for worse. There is not only guilt for individuals, but guilt for nations, guilt for families, and guilt for clans. This is often called corporate guilt.
The fact is that we all know that our actions have an impact on others. This is especially true for those who are in authority. If parents make poor decisions, whether financial or legal or moral, this brings consequences on children. If military leaders make poor decisions, this has a significant (and even fatal) impact on the soldiers under their charge. If kings or presidents make poor decisions, this can have a crippling impact on an entire nation (or multiple nations).
While this might not give us a final answer on why God would enforce consequences on the descendants of those who sin, and why he told Israelites to wipe out entire nations, including non-combatants like women and children, it can help us to understand that corporate guilt and consequences are a normal way of life in a world in which we are all connected to one another.
2. No one is innocent. Often we will talk about the immorality of innocent people being punished for the sins of the guilty. We need to be careful when we say this. We are not as innocent as we think we are. And, often, the people being punished for the sins of others are not innocent at all. Often the nations that are punished have partaken in the sins the bring guilt of their kings. Often the children that are punished have taken part in the sins of their parents. We need to be careful not to assume that the punished group is innocent, just because they are being punished for the sin of their representative.
This, of course, does not solve the problem of a future generation being punished for the sins of their ancestors. Clearly, the future generation is not yet guilty of the sin for which they will suffer consequences. But a wider context for Exodus 34:6-7 might help us with this. God says something similar in Exodus 20:5-6 when the Ten Commandments are given. Here God says: I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to the thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
It is not too big a stretch to wonder if this context speaks into Exodus 34:6-7. Is it reasonable to think that perhaps the "of those who hate me" can be read into the third and fourth generation? After all, this is what he says earlier in the same book.
Whatever the case, though, we must always be careful when we talk about people being innocent. Every person has guilt before God. As much as we may see certain people as relatively innocent, but Scripture continues to point to our guilt. We must be willing to adjust our perspective to that of God.

3. Many punishments have far-reaching effect. If I robbed a bank and went to jail, I would be experiencing a punishment. But so would my wife and children. Without any special punishment from the state, they would experience natural consequences. My financial contribution to the family would stop. My presence as a husband and father would be compromised. There might be public shame that they would experience. The point is that my family might complain, "You are punishing us!" And, in a certain sense, they would be right. My actions would not only impact my children, but also my children's children. Sometimes our consequences necessarily impact people who were not a part of our crime.
It is worth considering the fact that the punishment given by God to these original sinners might simply be a punishment that, by definition, has an impact on future generations. If the punishment was loss of land or poverty or military loss, then this punishment might still be impacting people generations later. Sometimes a nation will lose a war and have the pay reparations. Or they may lose some land. Or they may simply be crushed by the loss of life. Sometimes our actions have natural consequences on our descendants.
4. Representations, for better or worse, is a key part of the gospel. It seems unfair to many of us that one person would be punished because of someone else's sin. But this not only happens occasionally in the Old Testament, this is what has happened to all humanity. Romans 5 teaches that we all are counted guilty because of Adam's sin. We were all in Adam, he was humanity's representative, and when he fell into guilt, we all fell into guilt. If we don't like this, then we need to be careful. After all, Paul goes on to say in Romans 5 that we all gain life through a different representative: Christ. We find ourselves guilty for the sin of a representative (although each of us has sinned enough to earn our own guilt), and we find ourselves justified for the obedience of a representative (even though we had no righteousness of our own). This is core to the gospel. What we see in the Old Testament is consistent with it.

I find the above four points to be really helpful. That said, I recognize that this does not eliminate the fact that this question is tough for us. I don't assume that these points fully resolve the issue. In addition to these thoughts, we must always show a willingness to trust God. Sometimes his actions will make perfect sense to us. Other times they won't. But through his gift of his Son, we have embraced that he is good, he is gracious, and he is trustworthy. This doesn't mean that we don't look for answers, but it does mean that we do so with the backdrop of trust.

Chris Broussard, Starbucks, and Mismatched Conversations

In the News
If you are a sports fan (like me), or even if you aren't, you have probably heard about Jason Collins coming out on Monday. It is news because he is a professional basketball player. His announcement makes him the first active, male, American, team-sports, professional athlete to come out as gay.
Overall, there has been an outpouring of support for Collins, who is a veteran player in the NBA. In fact, ESPN did a special episode on him in their show Outside the Lines.
Here is where it gets interesting (at least to me). On the episode of Outside the Lines, ESPN interviewed Chris Broussard, who is a frequent NBA analyst on ESPN and other sports stations. Broussard was asked many questions, but the one that is getting the most attention is when he was asked what he, as a Christian, thought of the fact that Jason Collins also claimed to be a Christian.
I didn't know about Chris Broussard's Christianity, but have since become aware of the fact that he has been outspoken about his faith, and that he is a big supporter of Christian Hip Hop and urban Christian ministries.
You can watch Broussard's comments below, but I will sum them up here. He did his best to articulate that homosexuality was one of many things that are called sin in the Bible. He worked hard to communicate that it was not worse than other sins like pre-marital sex between heterosexuals, but that it was a sin nonetheless. He said that he had a hard time considering Jason Collins to be a Christian because, by choosing an active homosexual lifestyle, he was living in open rebellion to God. Again, he reiterated that he would say the same about someone who was choosing to practice any other sin.

There are many things that I want to say about this interaction, but I will limit myself in this post to one area. At least one other post will certainly follow.

Mismatched Conversations
Not surprisingly, Chris Broussard has taken an intense amount of heat since his comments on Monday. I don't know if he will lose his job over this (I hope not), but he has been lambasted by many of his colleagues, as well as many bloggers and other people who disagree with him.
I am not taken aback by the fact that many disagree with Broussard. He communicated the basic Christian position on homosexuality (I actually think he communicated it quite well, considering the sound-bite context of his comments). The Christian position on homosexuality is becoming increasingly unpopular. Many people have pointed to the bravery of Jason Collins for coming out. While I do accept the Bible's teaching on homosexuality, I don't discount that there was something brave about Collins' actions. Nonetheless, Broussard's words were also brave. He politely articulated what he knew to be a very unpopular position, and he did so in the public sphere.
Again, it doesn't surprise me that he is receiving backlash. Some call Broussard a bigot or a homophobe. I believe these to be misdirected comments. But more misdirected are the comments that ignore his actual statements and respond instead to statements that he never made.
Some seem to feel the need to remind Broussard that we don't live in a theocracy, and that he shouldn't force his religion on others. Those who make these comments only show that they are not listening very closely.
Broussard made no comment about same-sex marriage. He never said that homosexuality should be illegal, or that Jason Collins should not be allowed to play in the NBA. In fact, he did not initiate bringing his faith into the conversation. He was asked about it.
Here is the key: He was asked if he, as a Christian, thought that a person could be a Christian and a practicing homosexual at the same time.
Broussard's answer was that he does not consider a person to be a Christian if that person is living in open rebellion to any of God's ways. Not foisting his religious beliefs on anyone else, he simply articulated a Christian perspective on the question.
As I said, there are other parts of this issue that I look forward to addressing, but I have one point here: We must be careful to respond to what people are saying, not what they aren't saying.
For someone to remind Broussard that we don't live in a theocracy reveals that they think he said that we should outlaw homosexuality. This is the kind of argumentation and debate that does nothing to help understanding and conversation.
And this is not simply something that non-Christians do to Christians. Let me give another example.

Before Your Remove the Plank in Your Brother's Eye . . .
Other the past number of months I have seen several Christians cry out against Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz. Their problem with him is that he said that anyone who is against same-sex marriage can take their business elsewhere. What an arrogant and dismissive thing to say!
Except that he didn't say it.

When challenged by a shareholder who had a problem with Starbuck's support of same-sex marriage, Schultz simply communicated that this was the stance of Starbucks, that it wasn't going to change, and that if the shareholder felt strongly enough about it, he was welcome to invest elsewhere. Here is his exact quote:
"If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38% you got last year, it's a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company."
Now, it is valid for a person to choose coffee other than Starbucks in response to their support of same-sex marriage. But it is not valid to say that Howard Schultz told anyone who disagrees with him that they can get their coffee elsewhere. When we do this, we do the same thing that we bemoan when it is done to us. We object to something that he never said.

As a Christian, I believe that Christians need to be involved in the public conversation about issues. We need to be thoughtful, gracious, articulate, and considerate. This is what I would love to receive from those who disagree with me. This is what Howard Schultz deserves. And this is what Chris Broussard deserves.
One final word: If you were Chris Broussard right now, you would probably appreciate thoughtful, grace-filled people who were coming to your defense. I am sure this is something that he would appreciate right now from those who understand his position and appreciate his boldness.

Same-Sex Marriage and the Christian Voice

Okay, I have been through several drafts of this post, so I am going to try to keep it really simple.

Just to contextualize myself, I believe that marriage, by defiition is between a man and a woman. I believe that it is a beautiful and God-given idea. It reflects commitment, oneness, and also the unity-in-diversity that belongs to the Triune God.
So, it is not surprising that I am troubled by arguments in favor of gay marriage. But I am also troubled by most of what I read by people who are opposed to gay marriage. Sometimes I am troubled by poor arguments and illogical thinking. More often, though, I find myself troubled by the tone of the comments made by brothers and sisters in Christ who want to use their voice to speak out in favor of the "traditional" definition of marriage.
If you are reading this as a non-Christian, you are welcome to keep reading. That said, this post is not intended to convince anyone of anything when it comes to same-sex marriage. This post is meant to explore how those of us who are Christians use our voice. And I want to do this by making three simple statements that I think can be helpful to us.

1. Your Voice is a Precious Commodity
God has given each of us a voice. We use that voice through our words, both public and private. In today's society, this also includes our posts on facebook, twitter and blogs. Your voice is a gift. But your voice is also a trust. Don't waste it.
Right now I am not talking about the fact that we need to be kind and considerate with our words. I will talk about that later on. Right now I am talking about the fact that only a few things will define our voice. We all have friends who are always talking about one thing. Maybe it is sports or movies or TV shows. Maybe it is fitness or food or clothing. Maybe it is politics. After a little while, we all begin to label these friend
s. This one is Fitness Gal. This one is Sports Guy. This one is Walking Dead Fan. And this one is Political Guy.
This is even more true of our facebook "friends." Facebook doesn't consist of long conversations. We get soundbites. We get a few sentences to express ourselves to the world. This may sound silly to you, and I don't mean to get grandiose. I know that most of us don't spend a great amount of time on what we post. We just say what is on our mind. Nevertheless, what you post ends up being how you present yourself to the world. You are using your voice.
So, to what will you lend your voice?
While most of us don't spend a lot of time considering what we post and what we say, I think we should. After all, your voice should be precious to you. When you are expressing yourself to the world, you should think about how you are coming across. You can only post about something so many times before your voice becomes consumed with that one issue. This is true of politics, sports, family, health . . . and same-sex marriage.
For those of us who are Christians, this should not be an insignificant consideration. We are given the great task of bringing Jesus' light to the world. It would seem natural that we would want our voices to be consumed with what is most important to him.
I am going to ask you not to stop reading after this sentence.
The core of Jesus' message does not concern marriage. It does not concern homosexuality. It does not concern politics.
Now, stick with me. I am not saying that these things don't matter. I see big implications for how our country ends up defining marriage. But nobody's eternal destiny is determined by where they land of this issue. This doesn't mean that it is wrong to talk about it and post about it. But it does mean that our voice should not be consumed by this issue.
Today is Good Friday. It is important to remember that Jesus did not die so that gay people could not get married. He died to save sinners. Like me. And like you. I want my voice to be all about this message. Gay marriage is not unimportant, but it is not the crux issue either.
Our voice is a precious commodity. We should be very thoughtful with how we use it.

Just Because It's True Doesn't Mean It Need to be Said
As children, many of us were told that if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all. At some point I think we decided that adults are exempt from this truism.
Just because something is true doesn't mean that it needs to be said. We all know this. If someone is fat, you don't need to say it. If someone's clothes look strange to you, you don't need to say it. If someone loved a movie and you didn't, you don't need to tell them. When we refrain from speaking the truth, we are not necessarily compromising in a cowardly way.
Here is where all of this is heading. Christians need to talk about gay marriage, but we need to be wise about when and how we do this.
Some Christians go all the way to the other side. Some Christians side with the cultural norm and don't hold to God's Word. Caving to the cultural norms is neither loving nor brave. I am not saying that the way we love people is by agreeing with them when they believe something that is untrue. If someone is morbidly obese, you don't necessarily need to comment. But if they are consistently talking about what great shape they are in, you should not affirm this. They believe something that is untrue and destructive.
I hope you can sense that I am not saying that Christians should not speak up about gay marriage. I think we need to.  I think we should talk to our children, I think we should educate our churches. I think we need sermons and classes and small groups and books and articles to help us tackle this. It is one of the hot topics of our time. I have preached about it in the past, and I don't think we should stop addressing it. I also think that there is an appropriate place for engaging the culture on this issue. There do need to be people who write and speak in the public sphere. The purpose of this writing and speaking should be not simply to champion something that we think is true, but to warn people against something that we think is destructive. You only warn someone if you care about them. This concern should come through in how we speak.
And it is important to remember that the normalizing of homosexuality does not mark a divide between the Christian worldview and the typical American worldview. These worldviews are already at odds. The main chasm between the two is not gay marriage. The main chasm has to do with what we believe about Jesus. Christians believe Jesus to be the once and future king, the risen Lord of the whole world. Nonchristians don't believe this. Our goal is not that nonchristians would embrace the "traditional" definition of marriage. Our goal is that they would embrace Jesus, the only one who can bring forgiveness and salvation and significance.
We all need to remember that it is possible to waste our voices on something that is true. Just because it is true doesn't mean it needs to be said at every opportunity. Wisdom should lead us to timely words.

Our Tone Is Part of Our Content
It is not simply that our tone impacts the content of our words. Our tone is part of the content.
It has struck me that Christians often use Jesus' conduct to justify two opposite (and equally wrong) approaches.
1. Some Christians will say that we should be like Jesus, who was meek and mild and would never have hurt anyone's feeling. The Christians who say this need to read the gospels. The Jesus who would never dare to offend is not the Jesus we encounter through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In the gospel we encounter a man who is willing to speak with brutal honesty in order to set people free from the lies that they have embraced.
2. Some Christians will say that we should be like Jesus, who boldly confronted his culture. To this assertion, though, we must ask this question: "To whom was Jesus speaking when he was boldly confronting people?" He was not speaking to Rome. He was not speaking to the "godless" and to "sinner." He was speaking to men and women who claimed to embrace God's Word and God's ways. He gave his sharpest rebukes to those who should have known better. He didn't rebuke the "godless." He rebuked us!
We should not use Jesus' example as an excuse for our own cowardice. We must be willing to speak the truth in love. But we also must not use Jesus' example to justify a harsh and antagonistic tone with nonchristians. Jesus never treated "godless" people as the enemy. He came to seek and save those who were lost. He still seeks and saves those who are lost. This is our calling.
If you are dismissive and condescending and antagonistic toward nonchristians, what are you trying to accomplish? It is not good enough simply to say, "Well, I told the truth." Maybe you did, but this is not a good enough reason to say something. And consider the possibility that you didn't tell the truth. Perhaps what you really said was, "I am tried of all of you who don't embrace the Bible like I do. I wish that you all would either just get on board or get out of the way." If your tone communicates this message, then you are not on-message with Jesus.
If we are going to enter into the hotbed of the public conversation about gay marriage, we must consider our tone. We cannot be careless with our words on the subject. We must demonstrate that we love the people with whom we are speaking. We must demonstrate that God loves them. Just ask yourself right now whether a person's long-term good is more impacted by whether they know that God loves them or whether they know that gay marriage is not real marriage. The answer should be clear.
We must recognize that we are engaging with many people who don't think that the Bible is God's Word. We are engaging with people who struggle to understand why a God of love would tell someone not to do something that seems very natural to them. We are engaging with people who largely take for granted that it is hate speech to say that homosexual behavior or in any way inferior to heterosexual behavior.
Now, I believe that they are wrong. I believe that the Bible is God's Word. I believe this because almost 2000 years ago a man was raised from the dead after predicting that this would happen. And this man affirmed what was already written in Scripture and then entrusted his apostles with writing the rest of Scripture. I also don't think that a God of love would tell us to do what is natural to us. Many of our natural inclination lead us to pain and loss. I also don't believe that it is hate speech to say that a behavior is wrong.
So, I disagree with many people around me. But I still need to recognize where they are coming from. If I am dismissive or biting, I am not helping anyone.

This is much longer than I intended it to be. I apologize for this.
Let's not shrink back from the truth, but let's always remember that our voice is precious. Just because something is true does not mean that it has to be a part of our voice. And nothing should dominate our voice unless it is of utmost importance. In a week like Holy Week, when we celebrate the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, the things of utmost importance are right before our eyes.

Love Is Specific

This past Sunday was week 2 of our Pure Pleasure series through Song of Songs. We covered 1:2-2:7. If you would like, you can watch the full message below.


Pure Pleasure Week 2 from Life Bible Fellowship Church on Vimeo.

As part of the message, I emphasized that the man and the woman in the song are not simply singing about their desire for intimacy in a general way. The woman is not singing, "I want a man to hold me." The man is not singing, "I want a woman who will walk next to me." They are singing about each other. They compliment each other specifically. They are not just devoted to love in some abstract way. They are devoted to one another.
In this post, I would like to spend some time following up on this theme of love being specific. I believe that it has major implications for each one of us, whether we are married or not.

Indebted to Mark Driscoll
In preparation for this series, I listened to all ten of Mark Driscoll's messages from his "Peasant Princess" series through Song of Songs. His messages were excellent and were a great help to my preparation. Here are some phrases that Mark used to emphasize this idea of love being specific:
God didn't give Adam a type; he gave him a wife. God did not line up a group of women before Adam and say, "Which one do you like best?" God gave Adam a specific woman as his wife. If Adam would have said, "Well, I really like tall women with long legs," this would not have changed the fact that Eve was his wife.
Sometimes we can act as if we are victims of our own tastes and attractions. Many men complain that they are not attracted to their wives anymore. It is important to remember that God does not call us to be devoted to our tastes and preferences. He calls us to be devoted to our wives.
You're spouse is your standard of beauty. Because God does not place a value on our devotion of our own tastes, it is important that we don't measure our spouses against some objectified standard of our own making. This goes for both men and women. The grass can always seem greener on the other side. It is a recipe for discontent if you say to yourself, "If only she was thin like her," or "If only he was tall like him." Again, God treasures our devotion to our spouses, not to our fleeting and personal tastes.

Feed the Right Flame
Song of Songs compares love to a fire. The woman says,
   Love is as strong as death,
      its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
   It burns like blazing fire,
      like a mighty flame.
   Many waters cannot quench love;
      rivers cannot sweep it away.
          ---Song of Songs 8:6-7
Our God-given sexuality is a powerful thing. It is like a fire. Fire can be wonderful, and fire can be destructive. The key is that we must feed good fires and quench destructive fires. The good fire is the passionate love between husband and wife. The destructive fires are anything that get in the way of that passionate love. Too often we feed the fires of lust through pornography, fantasizing, and romance novels, and then we find that the fire in our marriages has died down. Many of us need to begin by starving out the destructive fires so that we can focus attention on rekindling the flame in our marriage.

Know Your Spouse
It is not a wife's job to make sure that her husband is attracted to her. But if a wife knows that her husband really likes a certain dress she wears, really likes her hair a certain way, or really likes a certain color of lipstick . . . she should use this information. God has given each wife a specific husband. While she should not feel the burden to make sure that his eye does not wander, she can love him by appealing to him in these ways.
Likewise, it is not a husband's job to make sure that his wife respects him and is attracted to him. But this should not lead husbands to become lazy, disconnected, selfish men who demand respect because "God commands it." If you know that your wife loves certain kinds of dates, or certain activities, or a certain configuration of facial hair, you can look to appeal to your specific wife in this specific way.
If you know that something is meaningful or attractive to your spouse, you can show love by giving them the gift of catering to them. This does not mean that we worship our spouse, but we also should be careful not to disregard our spouse.

Look to Attract Your Spouse
There is a danger in all of us, that we can desire to be attractive in a way that is general instead of specific. Women can desire to be beautiful to men in general. Men can look for admiration from women in general. This is very dangerous. This is often the first step to an affair. A woman begins to get compliments that she is not getting at home. A man begins to feel admired and respected, while he does not feel this from his wife. This is a recipe for infidelity.
A man should desire to be admired and respected by his wife. A wife should desire to be loved and desired by her husband. As you look to make yourself attractive, keep in mind what is attractive to your spouse.
In Song of Songs 1:12 the woman says, "While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance." In other words, she is saying that she spread the aroma of her perfume not while she was in the public square. She spread her aroma when she was in the presence of her beloved. She is not getting herself all dolled up in order to attract a man. She is beautifying herself in order to make herself attractive to her specific man.
One way to love your spouse is to value what attracts them to you.

Words Have Meaning
Finally, remember that words have the power of life and death. If you know that your wife is insecure about something specific, reassure her about that specific thing. If you know that your husband longs for admiration in a specific way, speak words of respect to him about that specific thing. Compliment the things that make your spouse unique. Generic compliments of affection and admiration are fine, but compliments that zero in on the uniqueness of your spouse carry greater power.




Love is specific. God loves each of us specifically. In marriage, we have the opportunity to mirror his love by giving specific love to our specific spouse.

Happy Valentine's Day.