The Gospel is About God, Not Us

And that is good news.

Last Sunday night at Peppers in Broad Ripple, at Pub Theology, the topic was "why do bad things happen to good people." A familiar one, and a very identifiable one. During the text message version of Q & A time at the end (which is always the best part), Daron Earlewine who leads it each week, completely took me aback by calling me out and asking if I would help him and another member of the band field the questions, that would no doubt be hard. Not my comfort zone, but I obviously wasn't going to say no. Later, a friend would tell me that if I really wanted street cred in a bar environment with many people who had little experience with church or God, that I needed to lose the glasses, get some ink (tattoo), and wear skinny jeans. Not likely, but duly noted.

I didn't say much, but definitely could have. God has not yet given me the discernment on how to speak the unchanging and eternal message of the gospel in a bar. But maybe he is working on that? In short, my answer to the general question of why do bad things happen to good people (or any people), would be something like this: God feels about sin the way we feel about the suffering in our lives. In other words, the same anger, sadness, and confusion we feel when something terrible happens to us or someone we love, is how God feels towards our sin. Even the really horrible stuff. Sin is that bad (actually its worse). But in Jesus Christ, we see God, who not only lived a sinless life that we could never live, but he died, in our place, and endured the most powerful and profound suffering, which we could never endure, so that we would not have to. And he rose from the dead assuring the forgiveness that he promises and the freedom from all kinds of sin and suffering that we will experience in time. For now, these light and momentary afflictions are producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. And all of that is not just so that we can feel better (though we can, and do), but so that God can get the ultimate glory and we can forever praise the glory of his grace, seen in the gospel, which is the whole point of the universe.

Next time, hopefully, if given the opportunity, I will say something to that effect - in a bar, or wherever.

"God has done everything: election, predestination, creation, adoption, manifestations of wrath, power, justice, wisdom – all of it – to solidify and intensify your praise for the glory of His grace."

– John Piper, Ephesians 1

"Lord, I'd like to start by saying I can hate where I'm at

When this life is hard and situations take me aback

The fight is hard and I can hardly face it in fact

In life it's hard to get up like a bar with weights that's attached

It really seems the situations that I'm facing is wack

I been awakened but now I'm feeling forsaken and trapped

With no hope and I'm broken open for Satan to trap

I been bothered since You Father put this weight on my back

So please erase it's wack, cause when this pain it attacks

My weakness is at it's peak and I'm feeling strained and I lack

The trust in You I struggle through the ways that I should come to You

Lord, what am I gonna do? It's true this pain it distracts

But I see my only hope when my backs on the ropes

Is in You so I read through the facts that You wrote

The pain may fade away, but if that's my only hope

Then You don't get the glory alone not even close

Lord, it may get better but it may not

So when I pray God, I pray I

Would trust You whether or not the pain stops

So when the the pain falls, coming down like rain drops

I just gotta cling to You

Heavenly Father, in Your Word You say we can build

Because of Jesus and the blood that He graciously spilled

Lord, I thank You for real, cause my Dad's always there

I can cast all my cares plus the weight that I feel

My situation is ill, I ain't asking to be making a mill

But is all my money for paying my bills?

It gets crazier still, my soul's on dangerous hills

A target for the world, flesh, and Satan aiming to kill

While the wicked who be hating your will

Sit by the lake as they chill, taking in sensational thrills

Lord, Your Son I admire, He's the one I desire

I'll run through the fire if You say it's Your will

But at times it's hard to hear You, the world doesn't fear You

Lord, give me a clear view Your face is concealed

Help me to be patient until Your grace is revealed

And in the mean time, between time, be praising You still

Lord, it may get better but it may not
So when I pray God, I pray I
Would trust You whether or not the pain stops
So when the the pain falls, coming down like rain drops
I just gotta cling to You

Lord, You know I'm hoping that my situation will switch

That You'll show me You're amazing by erasing it quick

But I've noticed that my hope was in You changing it quick

Instead of knowing You're enough Lord I was chasing Your gifts

But then I opened up Your text and looked at David and them

Their situations was grim, but it ain't change them within

They prayed You'd take it away but sought Your face in the end

And found comfort in Your justice and the grace You extend

So in this life full of strife if my days get grayer

I'm content with the fact that You'll stay my Savior

No change in my King, man, it ain't no greater

Comfort than what's found in You that's so major."

- Cling to You, Trip Lee and Shai Linne

The Gospel is Relevant!

I have good news for Kanye, who almost cried on the Jay Leno show a couple weeks ago and is taking time off to "analyze how he's going to make it through this life and improve", and David Letterman, who through nervous joking admitted to his confrontation with (some of) the frightening consequences of his mistakes. I wanted to pass it along. I hope they see it:

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

That's all. By the way, it is good news for all of us too.

The Fellowship of the King

As with all my blog posts, this subject really matters. And this post title is pure awesomeness. To my new readers, yes, I am really that arrogant. To my old readers, do you really exist? My blog traffic has been less this summer, and coming into the fall, maybe that will change, maybe that won't. Either way, I'm not convinced that anyone has noticed. You should prove me wrong with a comment. :) On an unrelated note, I joined Twitter recently, and I can guarantee that if and when I ever "tweet", it will be sarcastic and probably won't matter. Per the commercial:

"I'm sitting on the patio."

"Dad, I know you're sitting on the patio!"

"Hehehe."

Not really. In all seriousness, as Tim Tebow says, God has already tweeted everything he needed to (its called the Bible), so why do you care what I would say at any random point in the day? On the other hand, the purpose of this blog is to try to articulate what God has already said in a way that is helpful and meaningful given the complexity of our culture and the complexity of what you might be tweeting about right now. So that is why it matters. But, knowing my initial hesitation and now affection for facebook, I will also probably make the same transition with twitter, and will probably tell you about how comfortable my couch is on a Sunday afternoon, hope you care, and also follow how comfortable your couch is, and definitely care. And I will probably try to tweet the Gospel in less than 140 characters, if that is indeed possible. So I'm not hatin' on twitter, just making sure our priorities are straight. Are we cool? My favorite "tweet" so far is by John Piper: "In Christ, the best is always yet to come. Always. No exceptions. Forever."

Wow.

FELLOWSHIP REDISCOVERED

So, fellowship. What the heck does this word mean, and why does it matter? To bring you up to speed, for most of the year, my posts have been working through and dancing around two main questions:

1. What is church, how should it work, and why does it matter?

2. What does it mean to be a Christian, and why does it matter?

I went to a pivotal conference in April called Entrusted with the Gospel, which was a exposition of 2 Timothy put on by The Gospel Coalition. I then began the journey of leading a "Life Church", or a unique version of a small group bible study that is meant to de-compartmentalize our lives so that all of our worlds can collide into a glorious mixture of Christ-like living that is both natural and transforming. And I was, and am still, committed to keep the balance of gospel word and gospel community in this journey, trusting that the transforming power comes from the gospel; not just any word and not just any community.

Four months in, I'm excited and challenged. We have not yet answered the question about how exactly to "do church" and we haven't yet found the passage in the New Testament that outlines it perfectly for us (a combination of Acts and 1 John is a great start). We have not yet walked and lived a perfect balance of biblical and relational communion. Some would like to have more fun and some would like to have less (that was partly facetious). We have not yet served with our hands and our lives the less fortunate in our community to the degree we need to. And we have not yet seen hundreds of people come to saving faith in Jesus.

But! We have been faithful to the Bible, and we have been patient with and sensitive to the Holy Spirit. We have offered a community to Christians and non-Christians alike where they can be welcomed, loved, convicted, and presented with the most precious and important message in the world. While prayer is being taken out of the schools, it is being brought in to the bars in Indianapolis. "Pub Theology" is opening the door for biblical and spiritual conversations to those who would never set foot in our churches. If you like beer, but not church, come hang out. We want to party with you. Christians are working out their salvation together across the city in authentic, consistent communities, and people are mutually encouraging each other's faith. God's word is speaking actual grace into people's lives. I am excited about what God is doing, and challenged about what more he could do with our faithful proclamation and demonstration of the gospel, and our gracious engagement into our culture.

MISSING OUT

But still I think that we should fully understand and practice the biblical concept of fellowship so that we don't miss out on what God desires for us. We could miss it, and I don't want that for anyone. At a recent "Life Church", the conversation in our group led me to ask the following questions (which of course, led to several other questions):

1. Are Christians generally more comfortable going to a bible study where they don't know anyone else, or to a social event (i.e. a cookout) where they don't know anyone else? What about non-Christians? Why?

2. Can a community of people who have nothing in common physically, emotionally, socially, professionally, financially, or culturally, but share a passion and unbreakable faith for Jesus Christ, experience fellowship?

3. If so, can a person who does not share a passion and unbreakable faith for Jesus Christ experience fellowship? If not, how should they fit into a Christian community?

Consider those questions. I won't answer them directly because I don't really know, and the answers no doubt vary. But I will follow them with some truths that I have been convicted of and that I think can be foundational in our experiment with and experience of fellowship.

In short, my main concern is mistaking fellowship as the casual, comfortable, perhaps shallow, social interaction that references the Bible instead of feeds on the Bible; or mistaking fellowship as starting with our relationships with other people instead of our relationship with God; or mistakenly excluding non-Christians because of their lack of experience, belief, or comfort level with the Person and Work of Jesus Christ or "churchy" things; or mistakenly welcoming non-Christians into community without ever making any mention of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the foundational and transforming power that makes fellowship authentic; or mistakenly never going deep and being real with our Christian communities and likewise missing out on the experience of on-the-spot grace from the Word of God; or mistakenly serving each other only (which we must do!) without ever serving the outside world. Basically, my main concern is getting fellowship wrong and in turn, doing a disservice to Christians and non-Christians alike, and bringing dishonor to God.

WHAT'S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE?

So, simply put, I have been convinced that authentic, biblical fellowship is the experience, proclamation, and demonstration of saving grace, not just common grace. Without getting too theological (that would be terrible!), what I mean is this: our fellowship should start as fellowship with God (this is what 1 John is about). Our fellowship then should be based on, and exist through, our love for people. Our love for people should be based on, and exist through, the love of God for us. And the love of God for us is amazing. God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son. God's love for us is seen most fundamentally in the cross. God also loves the world so much that He allowed the sun to rise this morning; He gives us mouths to breath and eyes to see and ears to hear the wonders of His creation. He certainly didn't have to do any of that. The latter is common grace, and the former is saving grace. If we base fellowship on common grace only - that God loves you because He created you and created the world for you to enjoy and steward - and not base fellowship on saving grace - that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - than we will not be basing it on the complete love of God, and people will likely not be transformed, and God will likely not be glorified.

Do you agree? I think it's going to be hard for Christians to love each other in fellowship the way God desires unless we understand His love first. And His love is not touchy feely; it is bloody. I've been convicted that anything but cross-centered love (and fellowship) is going to ultimately be self-seeking, temporary, and lacking. Because anything not centered on the cross leaves room for boasting because it is about what you are doing, and not what Christ did. In no other context but cross-centered ministry can you love others and do good deeds out of complete selflessness, knowing that you don't deserve ANYTHING; but God loved you anyway and died for you, which makes you want to love others the same, not necessarily so that you can die for them and so glorify yourself, but so that they can better see Christ who died for them and so glorify Him and save their souls.

IS THIS PRACTICAL?

Is this kind of cross-centered love practical? Yes! Of course. I posted on The Cross and Swine Flu a little while ago that took some ideas from Mark Driscoll's book Death By Love, and elaborated on them. Some of these were extreme cases. In more everyday life, what does it look like? Well, I've never liked the phrase "doing life together", and I'm starting to embrace the phrase "working out our salvation together" in its place for this Life Church model. The reason I don't like this first phrase is that I always wonder, what is it we are doing?

Life! you say. Well then, what is life? Is it your job? Is it watching football? Is it having people over for a cookout? Is it having conversations with friends? Is it having a family? Well yes, in your life you do all these things. But is life not most fundamentally sanctification, or growing closer to Christ's likeness, by seeking His Spirit through His word for guidance, and by leaning on other people for encouragement? Is it possible that practicing fellowship as "doing life together" could fall short of what God desires for us? Is it possible that "doing life together" gives an insufficient read on the eternal life that John was so passionate about describing? I think it is possible. Unless, of course, we are more specific about what "life" means, which is why I think a more helpful, biblical phrase is "working out our salvation together". This also allows fellowship to be practical without everyone in a certain group or church spending every waking moment together.

I still struggle a little with what it looks like for a non-Christian to easily transition into this type of fellowship. I think though, that if they see and understand our love for them that is based on the cross, where there can be no boasting, and where God offered his most precious treasure (Jesus) for the likes of our undeserving souls, and where they realize that they are undeserving also but that we (and God) love them anyway, than that love will not only be appealing, but also transforming (because it will not just be common grace; it will be saving grace). In this way, our bible studies should be such that anyone off the street should be at least as comfortable coming in to a group of people they don't know, as they would coming to a cookout of the same. Because they will see both love through us (that is common) and love through the Bible (that is saving). Love that is based on anything else but the cross (Jesus's life only, good works, spirituality, social togetherness, etc.) will not stack up. At least that is my conviction.

So stay tuned as I continue to wrestle with and experience this type of fellowship, that is first and foremost about, and with, the King. Please help me wrestle if you'd like, just try not to be like Gollum. That guy is messed up.

Poetic Paraphrase

I love Christian rap. Here is a taste, without the music:

2 Corinthians 10 - 13

I’ve boasted of your readiness for a year.
Give them your heart and not the pressure of your peers.
They say I’m bold in letter, meek in face,
If I begin to boast, I boast in grace.
If they can boast then I can boast in position.
If they can boast then I can boast in tradition.
I can boast in my physical con-dition,
Stoned to beaten but to God’s glory my affliction.
I can also begin to boast in the vision
Of glory and paradise that I saw with precision.
But if I saw the vision
God made a decision
To put a thorn in my side but His grace is sufficient.
So if I’m unimpressive it’s for the glory of the Lord,
Me being humble is the whole purpose of the thorn.
And if you want evidence of my power in the Son,
Next time I come, I will not spare anyone.
Test yourselves, to see if you are of the faith,
‘Cause the runner knows he’s running, if they’re runners in the race.
Finally brothers, be complete and like minded,
The love and peace of God, will keep us united.

Artist: 116 Clique
Song: This is My Heart
Album: 13 Letters

God is Big and I am Small

I've had writer's block. No big deal. So, back at it, the headline is as profound as I could get. Also, God is beautiful and I am ugly. God is good and I am not. As John Newton says, "Although my memory is fading, I remember two things quite clearly: I'm a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior."

There is not anything I know of (besides the Bible) that reminds me of these simple yet profound truths, and keeps them as the central and Spirit-led source of my sanctification, like breathtaking scenic landscape. I thought I would share some with you from my recent trip to Colorado Springs. Sorry that they don't do the actual firsthand view justice.

I am pretty small indeed.

Great reflection of the rock island and trees surrounding the Lost Lake off Cottonwood Pass, just West of Buena Vista, and at about 11,000 feet.

For some reason the dead tree absolutely makes this picture for me. Still working on the spiritual analogy.

This Fourteener (14,000 feet above sea level) was staring us down on the drive out to Lost Lake, and I was scared.

On top of Pikes Peak. The air was dry, thin and brisk, and it was awesome. I tried to take the whole mountain with me, but all I could fit in my carry-on was a small souvenir stone. Not the same.

With friend and fraternity brother Matt Jackson marking our climb....er....ride up to the summit via the Cog Railway.