Redemption and Gift Cards

I love gift cards. A gift card is like free money. Some people think that a gift card is a thoughtless gift, as if someone doesn't even know you well enough to buy you a good gift.

I'm pretty okay with that.

All you have to know is that I generally like the outdoors, music, or food and you can make me happy.

Where it gets bad is when someone doesn't even know me well enough to get me a decent gift card. Like the very nice people who got "my wife and I" a bed bath and beyond gift card. My wife is very thankful for the present you got her.

The idea of redemption is spoken of throughout scripture. Christians sing about it and preach about it, but I think it's one of those big words that remain vaguely defined for us. I think that because it was true for me for quite a while. So I put my college degree to use and did some biblical research.

I realized, to my dismay, that the word for "redemption" in the original language doesn't have some sort of crazy beautiful hidden meaning that can't be uncovered in english. (Pastors like it when there are cool hidden meanings cause it makes us sound smart.) It just means "redeem" or "ransom."

Like a gift card. A gift card is something that you redeem. Why? Because it has value. Like a coupon or a discount code. It has value, but that value is of no use until it is used for what it was designed for.

That is redemption. God looks at us and sees value. He sees something that is of great use, something that can do good. Something that is worth it. But He knows that it will never be of use until it is connected with what you were made for- Himself.

Sin has broken us, it has separated us from what we were made for. Until we are brought back to relationship with Christ we are like Wal Mart gift cards at Best Buy- useless.

But Christ redeems us and brings out the value that is locked inside us and unreachable. That value is the image of God himself- who we are made for.

Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[b]6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[c] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

3 Reasons to Pray Boldly

Let me tell you a quick story. I've been a student ministry pastor for about a year now. When I began ministry I felt a distinct word from God that we needed to have a baptism service in about 6 months. We put it on the calendar and started preparing for the service. With the word about the service came the unshakable feeling that we needed to plan to Baptize 10 people, and we need to make that number known. Now 10 people may not seem like a bold number but for a smaller youth group in a highly churched culture 10 people is a big number. I was scared. Less scared and more concerned about my image really, because I knew that when we started proclaiming 10 people and only got 5 I was going to look dumb. You probably know where this story is going, but I'll tell you any way. Up until the week of the baptism we had about 6 people in line. We spent 6 months planning and advertising and got 6, and then the week of the service 3 more people added. I thought "9 is close enough. That's basically 10. Praise the Lord." The day of the Baptism our lead pastor stopped me at church and told me that one more person had called to sign up and we had 10 people.

Since that day God has been pushing me to approach him boldly, to ask him for greater things. The fact is that God is concerned with our tiny requests, but He is powerful for the bold requests. Most of us, myself very much included, ask God for things and then do everything we can to bail God out. We make sure that what we asked for either will happen or doesn't matter. After all the creator of the universe needs us to give him an excuse... I think God is calling his people, church leaders and church members, to start praying risky prayers.

1. We Have His Heart: Scripture is full of passages in which it becomes clear that God loves to do good for His people. He is our Father. If human, broken, messed up fathers can love giving good things to their kids how much more does the perfect God in whose image they were made love giving good gifts to his kids. We have his heart because his heart is for us. In Hebrews 4 we are instructed to approach the throne of grace with boldness because we have an intercessor, Jesus, who understands everything we need.
2. We Are Aligned With His Heart: God calls us to his mission in the world by his power through his love. Why in the world do we timidly pray about him accomplishing through us what He has already told us He desires to accomplish through us? It is not God's heart to give each follower a great retirement plan, but it is his heart for each follower to leave a significant impact on the people they can reach. Why do we nervously ask God for power to show His love? Why do we humbly ask to change our schools, workplaces, or families? That is God's heart and mission! He already wants to. Ask Him like you know the Almighty God wants to change your city.
3. He's Huge: He's God and he loves us more than we could ever understand. He has all resources at his disposal but we ask him for 200 bucks to pay the rent like it's going to drain his checkbook. Approach boldly because your God cares for you. He is growing you and teaching you. He desires your good. He doesn't usually answer exactly the way we thought He should, but He does answer.

Last thing- Boldness is not arrogance. It's not claiming what you think you've earned or deserve. It's reaching out to Jesus who died to prove to you just how dedicated he is to you. We need to start praying bold prayers to see the kingdom of heaven break into our lives and overtake our world. 

Homosexuality: How Do Christians deal with the issue?

Lets begin with a bit of clarity. The issue of homosexuality is more than a sin issue. It's more than a morality issue. It's more than a right or wrong issue.

It's a human issue.

It's a human issue because we are dealing with human beings.

Human beings are innately sexual creatures. We've been so since the beginning. In fact one of the first things we were commanded to do was be fruitful and multiply. Then theres the song of solomon. Which makes the point unavoidable. When we talk about homosexuality we are not talking about an issue, an epidemic, or a choice. We're talking about human beings who, like all human beings, find there sexual tendency closely linked to their identity. It's part of our brokenness. Sexuality was directly affected by the fall. Our sexuality instantly brought shame when sin entered the world, and anything shameful is hidden, and anything hidden is easily confused.

That being said no straight person defines their self by "heterosexuality." We call ourselves firemen or musicians, or we say we're married or love our dog.
If we don't make our sexual orientation our greatest divider for those who call themselves straight, why should it be the primary definer of someone who considers him or herself gay?

By allowing homosexuality to be the buzz word of identity and the pinnacle of "sinful culture" we have perpetuated to people that need the love of Christ that it is their sexuality that defines them instead of their creator. When we start with sexuality instead of humanity we will always end at depravity instead of the image of God. It has nothing to do with homosexuality being sin, it has to do with homosexuals being humans. When we attack homosexuality we are reinforcing that identity is sexuality, then telling people that their identity is detestable to God.

So we need to stop.

We need to learn the power of our words.

We need to stop dealing with the issue of homosexuality and start dealing with the issue of introducing people to Jesus. People. All people. All are loved. All can be forgiven. All can be redeemed. None have to do it on their own. None have to do it first.

Does that mean homosexuals can be Christians?

well... yes.

Does that mean gossips can be Christians?

yes.

The good thing is that it also means you and I can be Christians.

When struggling with a sin disqualifies a person from being a Christian I'm out. So are you.

Temptation is not sin. Jesus was tempted. That means being tempted to look at porn isn't sin. That means having an attraction toward porn isn't sin. That means having the attraction to a member of the same sex isn't sin. Acting on it is.

But lets be real. David had an affair and killed a guy to cover it up. He was a man after God's own heart and wrote most of the Psalms. The cross of Christ is more powerful than any human issue.
But for some reason we think that homosexuality is going to tear apart the church? No. There is no sin, no struggle, no human issue that is greater than our God or more powerful than his cross.
That deserves an amen.

The more we worry about homosexuality instead of worrying about people meeting Jesus the farther we tear the wound.

Sin cannot keep us from his love. Accept him and trust him first. He'll deal with the sin as we grow close to him. It won't be easy. But it also won't be a losing battle.

Helping people enter into and grow in a relationship with him is the only issue Christians need to worry about. We do that by loving them, serving them, telling them, accepting them, befriending them, discipling them.

Yes, homosexuality is sin. That is an unavoidable truth in scripture, but there are a lot of sins in scripture. None of them define someone more than how much Christ loves them. Sin has never kept God from pursuing, accepting, forgiving, and THEN changing humans. The first step is Jesus. The middle steps are Jesus. The last step is Jesus. Worry about Jesus. He's the only one who can take care of any sin.

Highlighting the wrong passage- Why you should get a new Bible

I was talking to a good friend not too long ago and she told me something very interesting. She said that she had to get a new Bible. She said that she couldn't stand looking at the Bible she had written in and highlighted for her whole life any more.
Why?
 Because she had highlighted all the wrong passages.
She said that when she was growing up she was so concerned with what she had to do, how good she had to be, and what sins she had to avoid, that the most highlighted, underlined, and noted passages in her Bible were the ones about discipline, avoiding sin, and working out your faith.
She said it was so prominent that when she looked at her Bible her eyes were instantly drawn to all that she had to do to be a good Christian and past all that Christ does to make us who we're made to be.

Wow. That's powerful. I wonder if maybe we should all get new Bibles.

Many of us have grown up so focused on what we have to do that we completely over look what Christ has done for us. We hear about free grace, unfailing love, and freedom and we look for the fine print because nothing is really free. We're so concerned with our performance that we gravitate to our duty to the dismissal of what Christ has truly done.

The fact of the matter is that salvation starts and ends with Jesus. We are the recipients of something free. We do nothing to earn it or deserve it. What we do comes out of what Jesus has done and life change comes from exposure to who Jesus is. The more we try to change the more trapped in our guilt cycle we become. The more we know Jesus the more like him we become.

Maybe we should all start over with a clean bible and empty margins. Maybe we should start highlighting what Jesus has done and what his spirit is doing. Because really nothing we do deserves to be highlighted compared to that.

God works himself out in us as we expose ourselves to him. Our new life has been gifted to us by him. We take it, we don't make it.

Ephesians 4:22-24

The Message (MSG)

20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

No, actually, I'm not tracking...

I'm about to admit something that might get me banned from some churches.

Lots of hymns creep me out.

There I said it. I feel better.
I'm all for metaphors and hyperboles and singing about the blood of Christ that washes away sin, but I think a lot of the songs that we sing just plain freak some people out... and some things we say too...

Imagine you get invited over to a party by a friend and all of a sudden the DJ puts on a song about taking a dip in a fountain filled with some guys blood. I hope you'd be freaked out.

I don't think hymns are sinful, and I'm sure there are lots of people that really connect with those lyrics. I'm also sure those people grew up in church or have gone there for long enough to get all the subtle hidden messages tucked away in those songs.

I just think we need to be careful. If our primary job as a church is to reach people with the Gospel of Christ and make them into disciples we should probably be careful about the things they hear and don't understand when they walk through our doors for the first time. I think sometimes Christians speak their own language. We assume that everyone knows the Bible story we're referencing, we assume that people understand that the blood that flows is not sadistic and the mansion in glory isn't all we think about. We assume to much, and we all know was assuming makes of u and me...

I think we need to be careful. To think about how people feel when they walk into our churches, and if they're going to be introduced clearly to the gospel by the things we do, or if they're going to spend the whole service wondering what the heck an "ebenezer" is.

You could always just go read Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley instead of my blog though... He says it a lot better than I do. I'd recommend doing that. 

Sports Parents

One of the best parts of my job as a pastor is being involved in the lives of the people I minister to. For me specifically, since I work primarily with youth, I get to attend sporting events. I've begun to notice a few trends in parents who watch their students play. There are many different types of parents, from those who threaten to sue the officials for one more bad call to those who sit quietly and wonder what all the fuss is about. I decided, for the sake of clarity, that I would create a set of categories so next time you are at a game you know exactly who you're sitting by.

1. "My Child Carries This Team on Her Back" 

- aka: "Single Child Family" "Private School"

- Characteristics: This parent is yelling. Not cheering. Yelling. At the refs. At the coach. At the other team. Every time their offspring sits on the bench to take a water break it becomes a personal offense against generations of Smiths. Oftentimes this parent doesn't know or care what the score is, they just know it would be higher if their kid were on the floor.

2. "Run Down the Field and Hit Another Basket"

- aka: "Brought My Knitting with me" "Jack, did you bring your cup?" "My Son Thinks You're Beautiful"

- Characteristics: This parent is also yelling, but not to be confused with parent 1, this parent is cheering. This parent is cheering for everything. Baskets. Touchdowns. RBIs. Fouls. Defense. The Cheer leaders. Your 8th grade crush. They may not know if this is basketball or track but they do know that their team better win... as long as the other team doesn't have to lose. 

3. "He Reminds Me of Me When I Was His Age"

- aka: "Dad" "The Unpayed Assistant Coach"

- Characteristics: You'll find this person somewhere between screaming advice from the drills his child was coerced into doing after school and mumbling statistics from the state tourney in '83. You've also seen him sitting on the bleachers during practice spewing well meaning advice to the team and muttering about how much more they used to run when he played.

4. "I Want to Cheer But I'm Just Not Sure"

- aka: "It's the Thought that counts" "You're always a winner in my heart"

- Characteristics: Sitting next to someone with anxious eyes, fidgety hands, but hushed silence occasionally broken by the first few syllables of "Way to Go Kid!"? You're sitting next to parent 4. Ever supportive on the inside but ever timid on the outside, parent four thinks the world of her daughter but just isn't sure if it would be right for her to yell or when the appropriate time to cheer is. She will also be caught making horrified faces at parent number 1 because she doesn't understand how they could be so rude.

5. "I'm Here for Ya Son... While I check my email"

-aka: "Hey Mrs Cheerleading Coach, I'm Bill." 

-Characteristics: He's the one guy shouting out advice that is helpful, but irrelevant. "Defense is the best offense"... while his son's at the free throw line.

Who else have you seen at high school sporting events?

3 Reasons Confession is Important

I have a confession. That confession is that I do not really like the idea of confessing.
I much prefer a comfortable arms length relationship with basically everyone. It's easier that way. If there are certain things no one knows then there are certain things that no one has to know about. And if no one has to know about it then I can pretend it doesn't really exist.

Secrets Secrets are no fun. But they are very helpful in keeping up peoples perception of me.

But then again I am a pastor which means I really do need to teach and accept the whole Bible, not just the parts that I like. There is that verse in James that talks about confessing to one another and praying for one another so that we may be healed.

Darn.

This verse has been running through my mind lately. I wonder what it would look like to live a life where we actually confessed to one another and prayed for one another. I wonder how my life would change if I lived with nothing to hide. A life with no dark closets where I keep all the stuff I can't force myself to throw away, but hope no one ever finds out I actually owned. That closet where most of us keep that members only jacket or studded belt from high school or that shirt that had shoulder pads... Some of us just still wear them like there's nothing that needed to change... (which is for a different blog post whether you mean shoulder pads or unforgiveness).
What would life look like it I didn't try to convince everyone that I wasn't weird and just admitted that I really don't want to get rid of that leather jacket I'm never doing to wear again, just because it's nostalgic? What would life look like if I didn't try to hide the fact that I struggle with things? If when my accountability partners ask "how's it going?" I said more than "pretty good lately, you?"?

Anyone uncomfortable yet? Or am I the only one who has used "pretty good" as a really broad and vague term before?

What would it look like if we actually confessed?
I've got a pretty good idea. I bet if we really started to confess to people that we trust then those people would really start to pray for us. I bet healing would come pretty soon after. I bet I'd never really be worried about what people find out ever again too.

Here are three reasons I think that.

1. Keeping deep secrets is like holding a lit match in one hand and a gallon of gas in the other. You're perfectly safe as long as things go like you planned, but the second you trip everything you knew is blown to bits. And we all know just how often life actually goes as planned.
2. It is impossible to really effect someone when you have them at arms length. Try it. Stand up straight exactly arms length away and try to push someone over without getting any closer to them. Unless you have inhumanly large fingertip muscles that's impossible. In order to have an affect on someones life you have to lean into them. In order to pray for real healing you need to see the hurt. And your prayers when you lean in will accomplish a lot.
3. Because you can never be confident in who you are and who you were made to be until you realize that you are loved in spite of your flaws. Jesus Christ knows literally every thought you've ever had. He knew them before you were even born. He died for you before you thought them, even though He knew you would think them. You can't mess up your way out of his love, and in true Christian community when you are in honest confession, trying to grow and seek healing, you can't mess up your way out of love.

**I'm not implying that we should start posting facebook statuses about our sins. Privacy is important. What I am implying is that a doctor can never help a problem until you tell him where it hurts and that the coughing might come from the chain smoking. To continue that analogy doctor patient privilege is a big deal. You need to be able to really trust and depend on the people you confess to.

So I'm thinking about a life with nothing to hide. It's scary. I don't like it.
But I think it might be worth it.
What do you think?

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."