HCLM BLOG

One of the difficulties of our faith is how we deal, talk, and interact with sin. The Bible says that when we sin, if we confess it to Jesus we are forgiven. This forgiveness comes to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And many times, because I know that to be true, I believe that I’ve been desensitized to the impact and weight of sin. What I mean is this, “If I know I’m going to be forgiven, then, it doesn’t really matter if I sin, right? It’s no big deal. God will just forgive me.” I don’t know how many times in my past when wrestling with temptation I’ve used that rationale. This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer has called “cheap grace.” It cheapens the grace God wants to give to us. And we’re not the first ones to wrestle with this question.

Paul says in Romans 6:1: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” Later in 6:15, “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”

Paul’s pretty emphatic about this. Sin is serious. The Bible says that God hates sin! I was reminded this morning of Galatians 6:7-8 which tells us that every time we sin there is a consequence. ” Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

God knows your heart and he can’t be tricked or mocked. Every time you sin, you do something that the God that died on your behalf and in your place hates. And Galatians tells us that every time we do sow (sin), we reap something from that. There’s always some sort of consequence, or destruction, etc. that comes from our sin. No exceptions!

My goal here is not too guilt you into not sinning, but to make you think twice before you do that thing that you’re tempted by. It’s not right. And you shouldn’t do it. So how do we deal with this?

If you’re struggling with a math problem, you get help from your teacher because he/she can help you answer that. You don’t go to the person who got the worse grade in the class. If you need help with a marital problem, you go to someone who’s been trained like a counselor and can help you with that. You don’t go to a teenage kid who plays video games and eats Cheetos for breakfast. If I’ve got a question about parenting, I ask my parents, because well, they’re parents and they’ve been there and done that. The best way to surrender to sin is to spend time with the one who has conquered it. Think about it, if you want to conquer a sin in your life, wouldn’t you want to go to the only one who’s done it? It makes sense, right? The next time you are struggling with sin or temptation go to Jesus. He knows what it’s like to conquer sin:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16

Over the last two days I've had the chance to just sit and read God's Word.  I read through the entire book of Acts.  You should try it…it doesn't take too long.  It's something that as your pastor I should be doing a lot of.  But to be honest, I get so caught up in daily tasks, that many times at the end of the day I forget to spend time with the God that created me and sent His Son for me.  Sometimes even these tasks are good tasks and they lead me into the Word, for instance, preparing a Bible  study, crafting a sermon, etc.  But it's been hard, lately, to find time to just sit at the feet of the Rabbi and listen and learn from Him.

Common and Ordinary Ain't Always Bad

But I've been refreshed by reading through this book which tells us of the early church and how it started.  I love the book of Acts because so much is happening in it.  I think I read four or five accounts where God busted his apostles out of prison, two people were raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit in the apostles, many more were healed, some died for their belief in Christ, thousands of people were believed and baptized, and the Gospel message spread throughout much of the world.  All in 28 Chapters!  

The thing I love most about the book of Acts is that you and I are much like these men and women that changed the church.  They were flawed.  They were outspoken.  They got into disagreements.  They showed favorites.  They were ordinary.  They were unschooled.  That's what Acts 4:13 tells us anyway:

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common (ordinary) men, they were astonished.  And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."

Common, ordinary men speaking boldly on behalf of Jesus astonishing the leaders of the day and people of great power.  That doesn’t happen very often that common, ordinary people making a big difference and getting powerful people to stop in their tracks and be astonished by what you say.  That's like if I were to go up and say something to a leader of our day: (insert your favorite leader here) and them to stop and be astonished at what I want to tell them.

And that's really the heart of this book:  That if you want to be a person that makes a difference and even astonishes others in the world you first have to be with Jesus.  You have to be with, spend time with, encounter, and believe in Jesus.  And if you can do this, then God could be ready to change the world through you.

Do you believe that?  If not, read through the book of Acts and tell me why not?

 

One thing that I hate with a passion is when a church says, “We have the one
true doctrine and all others are wrong,” or else, “The way we worship is the one true way.” Garbage! I believe in the teachings and doctrine of the Lutheran church. For me, it’s as close as I can tell to being an accurate depiction of what the Bible says. But, thinking that we have it right and that we are perfect really, I believe, is a sin. We can know a lot about God, but some things he hasn’t revealed to us. To say that we know things perfectly is to go beyond where God has allowed us to go. And to say that we have the one true way of worship is also a sin. Worship is about giving glory to God and praising Him for who He is and what He’s done. Because God has created much different people in this world means that there will be much different ways/styles of worship. And we should embrace that. I have a style of worship that I like and that works best for me in praising God, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t see the benefit of other styles. Being open-minded and appreciative of the differences is really what God is asking us to be.

God is opening my mind this week. I’m at a Lutheran pastor’s conference in Chicago. I’m hearing presentations about churches and how they are doing ministry. And it’s striking to me how different churches in different contexts are doing such different things. Last week at worship we talked about how when the Holy Spirit comes in our life, we become a different person! The same could be said of God’s church. He is moving people and churches to do what is necessary for the sake of the Gospel. It reminded me of what St. Paul said:

1 Corinthians 9:22-23: I have become all things to all people so that by all
possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of
the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

I’m hearing presentations on how one church is reaching the Hindus, another church reaching out to the Chinese, another who is reaching out to the Hispanic community, etc. We, of course, are reaching out to all in East Lake County, but especially targeting families with young kids with our larger events. And what I realized is that what is most important is that we simply walk through the doors that God has opened for us. Those doors are much different for us than they are for some other church. All God is asking for us to do is to have the courage to continue to walk through the doors He opens for us. And I believe we’re doing that now.

What doors are God opening for you?

I pray that no matter what doors He’s opening for you that you would not only have the courage to walk through them but continue to be open to the fact that He might be opening different doors for others. Others may be doing ministry and church different than us, and it’s important for us not to say that “We are doing it the right way,” but rather to pray for guidance and wisdom for all other churches and to come to appreciate that there are many different ways to reach many different people!

I mentioned yesterday in my sermon the results of a study that was done and published last week in which 3000 British adults were asked "What things can't you live without?"  The results that came back might astound you!

"It seems that things like clean clothes and indoor plumbing aren't quite as important as a daily social networking fix, since Facebook— which appears as the #5 most important "thing" — beat out washing machines and toilets.

Just 4 things managed to eke out more love on the surprising survey, including sunshine, internet, water, and refrigerators. Facebook also ranked above coffee, mobile phones, email, automobiles, and even light bulbs. Other web services like Twitter and Google also appeared further down the list."

To see the full article on this survey, go here.

It's a good question to ask and I think we saw some honest answers in that survey.  And I don't know the nature of how the survey was conducted, but one thing is glaringly missing on that survey: anything spiritual at all!  And again, maybe it was a list of only 50 things that the London Science Museum provided, and there was nothing spiritually on that list; but it's a good question to ask ourselves either way.

Where do things like "God, the church, the Bible, devotional time, prayer, meditation, fasting, serving, etc." rank on your list of what's most important or what you can't live without?

And then secondly, does where they rank on your own personal list ring true with how much time you are currently devoting to those things?

Maybe it's time you take stock of your life and if you’re finding that Facebook beats out anything spiritual, then maybe it's time for you to do something about that!

It’s a good question isn’t it?  It’s all God has ever wanted.  We see that in Exodus  19 when he’s making the covenant with Israel and he says “I’ll be your God and you be my people.”  The problem is we don’t like letting God be God.

Oh, sure we do, sometimes!  You know, when we talk about love, grace, mercy, and justice we can wrap our heads around a God that is all of those things.  But what about the more difficult passages of the Bible that cause a lot of doubt and uncertainty?  I just read Francis Chan’s book called “Erasing Hell.”  He wrote it in response to another book by Rob Bell called “Love Wins.”  In “Love Wins” Bell argues that amongst Christianity there are different beliefs and views about who is going to heaven and hell and he makes the case and seems to promote a view that in the end all will go to heaven.  That God’s love will eventually win and even if people don’t confess Him as God in this world, they will get to in the next one, or the one after that, or the one after that, and so on.  This is called Christian Universalism.  Chan writes against this and does a good job of being honest with what the Bible is trying to tell us.

Chan, like myself, want to believe what Rob Bell says in his book.  It makes rational sense that a God of love, grace, and mercy would eventually save all people.  It’s what he wants, after all, right?  Isn’t that what the Bible says? “That God desires all people to be saved.”  I would love to say that all people would be saved.  Why?  Because that’s what makes sense to me about God and how I understand love.

But the Bible is pretty clear that some will be thrown into the fiery (which is probably symbolic) pits of Hell while others will be with Him in heaven.  Some in, some out.  Are you okay with that?  Can/Could you believe in a God that says this?

I am convicted that many times as a pastor, I pick and choose what seems comfortable to me about God.  So I pick things like God’s love, his grace, his forgiveness, his mercy all the time.  I fail to speak a lot about his justice, his wrath, his anger, etc. because I’m uncomfortable with those things.  But, at the end of the day, I have to trust that God knows best.  That he’s got a better plan figured out than I do.

Chan goes through different sections of the Bible and says, “I wouldn’t do that.”  Like the flood in Genesis…why destroy everyone not just by killing them but drowning them.  Or in Exodus when Moses comes down from the mountain and the Israelites are down below worshipping a golden calf.  God commanded the Levites to run through the camp and slaughter their brothers and friends and neighbors.  3000 people died that day, and the Levites were blessed for their obedience, Chan says.  And then years later God commanded the Israelites to slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan…men, women, and children…every single one of them.  He told Ezekiel to lie on his right side for 390 days, to lie on his left for 40 days, to cook food over human dung, to hold himself back from mourning over his wife’s death after God takes her, and he preaches sermons that are laced with sexually explicit rhetoric…I wouldn’t have done any of those things mentioned above! This is a tough paragraph to read through, let alone, explain.

Which is really the problem isn’t it?  That we try to explain everything we can about God when we forget to remember that He is the potter and we are the clay.  We have no right to come before Him and tell him how things ought to be and how he ought to act.  We have to take our God, the full God, even the God we can’t explain and just let Him be the God that He is.  He doesn’t need to fit into our tiny categories and boxes…his ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55) and we have no right to find fault with our God (see Job, especially chapter 40:1-8).

So the question is: Can you really let God be God in all things?  Have you been trying to explain Him away or picking/choosing certain parts to believe at the expense of others?  If so, repent and ask for forgiveness today.  Because there is one other thing that God did that I would never do: He came up with a solution to fix the relationship between Him and us by sending His own Son of all people!  I would never do that.  He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for us and suffer a brutal death so that through His defeat of death and by His resurrection we would all receive a gift we can’t explain or deserve: GRACE!  Sometimes it’s good that we have a God that we can’t explain or doesn’t do what we would do, huh?

Wow!  I’ve been amazed at what has happened over the past year.  Looking back, I’ve seen God do some beautiful things!  For some reason, that phrase just keeps coming back to me.  I can’t get it out of my mind.  When Jesus is seen, beautiful things happen.

All throughout the past year, we have seen these things happen.  Throughout the course of the last year many times I’ve said, “Man, it feels great to know that God is behind what’s happening here.”  And while that’s true because of all the things God has validated over the course of the last year, I think a more appropriate thing to say is that “God is ahead of us.”  He is the one that has brought this church together.

And this is always what God has done!  In the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 31:8, it says, “It is the LORD who goes before you.  He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.  Do not fear or be dismayed.”  He knew before we were here what would happen: that teams would come together, a food pantry would start out of that, a core group would be assembled who wanted to start a church, events were planned and held in the community, a building would be ready at the exact hour that it needed to be, kids would learn that God is wild about them at VBS, that a quality band could be found, and that our place was full for our first worship gathering!  All of those things put together show me that God has even greater things in store for us as a church.

 

There are so many un-joyful noises in the world out there today.  So many noises that just annoy, bother, complicate, or distract me from where I want to go.  Can you think of any in your life?  Maybe it’s a commercial promoting a product, a song you hate that is way overplayed, a whine from one of your children, or a hurtful thing someone has said to you.  I wonder what God thinks when he hears us sometimes.  Many times I’m sure I’m making anything but a joyful noise in front of Him. But I’ve got news for you: It’s time to make a joyful noise!

As I’m sitting here with just one more night before our first worship gathering, I came across a Psalm that reminds me why we are getting togehter for worship.

Psalm 95:1-7 says,
1Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
   let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
   let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3For the LORD is a great God,
   and a great King above all gods.
4In his hand are the depths of the earth;
   the heights of the mountains are his also.
5The sea is his, for he made it,
   and his hands formed the dry land.
 6Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
   let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7For he is our God,
   and we are the people of his pasture,
   and the sheep of his hand.

He truly is worth it.  At the end of the day, there’s a lot of good things in the world, but I can honestly tell you, God deserves a joyful noise and we hope to give it to Him Sunday at 10AM at our first worship gathering at theCross.  Clearly, I don’t mean to say that we can’t make joyful noises outside of Sunday morning worship, but I do think that as joyful of a noise one of us can make on our own, when we are all making a noise in unison with one another, combined with the talents and gifts of those that can sing well and play instruments well, I believe that makes our God very happy!  That is his ultimate desire, you know, that all would make that joyful cry out to Him as their God.  That’s all he’s ever wanted:  I’ll be your God and you be my people.  It’s exciting to get to be His people together and I can’t wait to see you Sunday!

Well, we have 12 hours to go before VBS starts and I can’t be more thrilled at how everything has come together at just the right time!!  Literally, we received signatures on our final inspection with just an hour left on Friday and the set-up/decoration was still happening today and the audio/visual is still being figured out as I type.  Things have come right down to the wire!  For the past five weeks I’ve been unsure if what we had previously selected would happen or not.  It feels amazing to know that God made it happen.  I think by him not giving us the assurance any earlier I learned some things about God, myself, and the church God has blessed me with.

I learned that to truly trust in God with a church that He has given to me that I need to rely on Him and others and less on me.  Many things were out of my hands and could only be worked out either by God or by other amazing people who volunteered so much of their time over the past two months.

I learned that all God asks is that I work hard and do my best but not at the expense of my family.  In all of this, I have put in the amount of time needed but still maintained a good balance of being at home with a new baby, a 3 year old son, and an amazing wife!  There were days and nights and even early mornings where all I wanted to do was to work to try to advance this church as much as possible and progress it as best as I could, but I felt like what God was telling me was “Don’t hurt your family…they are your number one priority.”  I think what God was telling me in this is that the church is ultimately his and its success will not be because I’ve poured in more hours than I should have or done things excellently, but rather because He is behind it and is blessing it.

I learned that God is absolutely behind what we are doing.  How else could you explain that things happened at just the exact time (and no earlier and no later) that they had to happen in order for us to proceed with our plans.  I believe God has anointed this place, these dates, these events, and specifically, this church to bring the Kingdom of God to Lake County like never seen before!

I learned that God has blessed me with an amazing group of people.  So many people gave makes things beautiful in His timing.  Going through this has brought me closer to the group than even before and I’m honored and it’s a privelege to serve alongside so many incredible people who have volunteered.

Lastly, I’ve learned that even in His timing God makes beautiful things out of what appears to be a mess.  Our building was a mess just a few days ago…an even bigger mess two months ago.  And now look at it!  It reminds me of the verse in Ecclesiastes 3:11: He has made everything beautiful in its time.  Thank you God!

If you were to go by the building right now you might not think we are going to be up and running here in two weeks.  There’s a lot to be done still!  But there’s also a lot being done behind the scenes in getting eqiupment, setting up deliveries, confirming appointments, etc.  God is making it happen!  It’s still going to be tight but I believe everything will come together, just at the right moment, not without a lot of help from you all hopefully!!  That’s just the way God works it out sometimes.

God knew from the start when our church would start…we just threw a dart on the calendar and said “Those dates look good!”  Well, there was a little more thought to it than that!  But if these truly are the dates that we will start ministering to the community, God knew that from the start and they have been anointed by Him.   It wasn’t just a dart he threw hoping it would hit a certain target. He has carefully planned and thought it out.  There is a reason why he has placed my family and an incredible group of people together at this specific moment in this specific place.

It reminds me of when Mordecai was talking to Esther, and he said to her ”Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time is this?”  What Mordecai was telling Esther, is that she was placed in a certain high position and a certain relationship to the King, and it was her, and only her, that could get the Jews out of a very difficult and life-threatening problem.  Her whole life and everything that had happened was being culminated so that at such a time as this she could do something incredible!

I feel God is telling us that today.  For such a time as this God has made you and put you with theCross east lake in some way so that together we can do something incredible in Lake County!  What do you believe God is calling you to do right now?  Who are you talking to right now inviting them to come and hear the love of Jesus?  How are you using the places and the relationships God has brought to you to benefit His kingdom?  These are questions we are all exploring together as we keep striving to be the people of God that He has created us to be!

This past week was rather difficult for me.  I felt overwhelmed one particular day with all the things that were on my plate.  At home, my youngest son Brady was sick and my wife Allison wasn’t feeling well either.  Being that she wasn’t feeling well I was up late at nights and, yes, early in the mornings with Brady.  Then I was thinking about work and all the stuff that still needed to be done for our church to open on time (or at least what we have always planned on).  The building isn’t ready to go yet, we still need a permit from the city, and approval on a couple of things from people that don’t feel the same pressure and deadlines that was weighing on me.  The pressure was on last week.  A lot to be done.  Time was running out.  Family wasn’t well.  Enough to make any man or woman go insane.  Let’s just say, “I was overwhelmed!”

Then, I thought about God and realized that all God calls us to do is to trust in Him. Then, I was reminded of 1 Peter 5:7 where Peter tells us to “Cast all our cares on Jesus because he cares for you.”  I think it’s in moments where we feel a lot of pressure or stress that a lot of us feel drawn to pray or to look outside of ourselves.  And I think that’s exactly the place where God wants us to be.  He wants us to do our best for him but if things are ever getting tough, to trust in Him and to be overwhelmed by His love and by His grace!

You can either choose to be overwhelmed by all of life’s pressures, or you can be overwhelmed by God’s love and grace.   Which one are you going to choose?