Four Lessons for Number Seven

October 23, 2005.  My first Sunday as Senior Pastor of Southview Baptist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska.

October 24, 2011.  My first Monday of the seventh year as Pastor with Southview.

Six years.  Plus one day.

Starting my seventh year.  I love these dear people.  My church family.  It is my daily joy to serve.  It is my privilege to be so close to God at work.  It is heartbreaking when I realize I have failed them.  It is crushing to walk through life's valley's with them.  I count it all joy.  Trusting our sovereign, loving Father.  And I pray I can be more like Christ & do more for his Kingdom in this seventh year than the last six.

Four lessons.  For number seven.

Loving.  My wife must know, my children must know, my family must know, my church family must know, my friends must know, & everyone I meet must know that I love them. The otherish love we share is God powered, other centered, & self sacrificing.  We love because Jesus first loved us.  We love as he commands. We love not because of what others can do for us, but because of what Jesus has done for us.

Leading.  My home needs a leader.  My church needs a leader.  My peers need a leader.  Our world needs leaders.  Christ following, Bible believing, courageously obeying, selflessly serving leaders.  Where my family has faltered, I am at fault.  Where my church has struggled, I have been lax.  Where your business has bungled, you are to blame.  Learn from it.  Move forward better.  If I am the leader, if you the leader in your family or workplace or church, then we must have a simple motto like this: I am the leader; I must lead.

Listening.  In order to love well, I must listen.  In order to lead well, I must listen.  We're all different - personalities, experiences, habits, maturity - yet we are all wired to want to be focused on.  We want to know others are listening.  We want their eyes.  Their body language.  Their questions & comments to show that they are with us.  And, when I assert my own ideas to quickly or am distracted by other things, I devalue the other person created in God's image & I cut off communication that mirrors that union.  When I do not listen well, I damage more than communication.  

Learning.  Your organization will be limited by your ability to learn.  Family, church, business.  When you stop learning, you stop moving forward.  Whether you are "the" leader or "a" leader - or even if you don't consider yourself a leader at all - you must continue to learn.  Come humbly.  A learning posture not only admits not knowing it all, but freely admits that it doesn't know much.  This learning posture admits the need for others.  Our learning posture honors the Christ's church as a body with every member needing one another.

I have falied when I have not lived these four Ls well.

I will continue to fail if I do not live them well.

Learn from me.  That humble posture might be the beginning for you.

Loving.  Leading.  Listening.  Learning.

Laying it all down for Christ.  And those he gives us to serve.

If They Could Just See

A dear, sweet friend, Amy Cooper, got my attention when we talked recently.  You gotta know Amy.  A wife of decades.  Mom of four.  Grandmother of six.  Retired missionary to the Orient.  An old fashioned gentlewoman.  She’s from LA - Lower Alabama.  Accent sweeter than cane syrup.  Smile warmer than the southern sun.  Eyes that glitter like lightening bugs.  And a hug that could only come from a grandma.  To know Amy and her amazing husband, Virgil, is to love them.

While talking about church planting and evangelism Amy, this loving, wonderful grandma, said, “I’m convinced if they could just see the Jesus I know, then they’d accept him.”

If they could just see the Jesus I know, then they’d accept him.  Can you see how she got my attention?

Amy begs the question: What Jesus do I know?  The Jesus of the Bible.  Revolutionary yet rational.  Judging yet gracious.  Holy yet merciful.  Or the Jesus of my own creation.  The Jesus of traditions and assumptions.  The Jesus I don’t know at all through a growing personal relationship.

Amy knows Jesus.  Risen Savior.  Loving Lord.  Righteous Judge.  Victorious Warrior.  She knows him through a relationship that is real and lasting.  Intimate and honest.  She knows Jesus can change lives.  I know that Jesus too.  And I’m with Amy.  I want others to know Jesus.  I’d imagine that you are too.

So we gotta ask: Why can’t they see Jesus?  If they can’t see the Jesus we know, is he obstructed by what they see of us?  Too much me.  Too Little Jesus?

John the Baptist said of Jesus, "He must become greater; I must become less."  How far from the conviction of John 3:30 are we?

Does our carelessness damage Jesus' perfection?

Does our pride obstruct Jesus’ humility?

Does our will hinder Jesus’ mercy?

Does our judgment destroy Jesus grace?

Does our anger erode Jesus’ love?

What about you, My Friend?  What is it in you that gets in the way of other’s seeing Jesus?

What did the Holy Spirit just tell you?  Will you confess it and repent from it right now?  Share a comment below so that others might pray for you or praise God with you.

The world around us - our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family - are dying.

To see Jesus.  

Calling All Sinners & Misfits

My Pastor Buddy, Aaron Loy, of Mosaic Lincoln nails it with his latest.  He was kind enough to allow me to repost here.  Read on.  Be challenged.  Be blessed.  Your weakness + God's strength = just enough.

The older I get, the more I am coming to realize that everyone has a reason why they can’t or shouldn’t be used by God in an extraordinary way.

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been teaching through the life of Gideon at Mosaic. Gideon is perhaps best known for his continual testing of God’s will through what is at times, unconventional means. Gideon was a man often overwhelmed by fear. For much of his life, it seemed Gideon could hardly take a step forward without questioning God, doubting his promises, and asking for reassurance. (I can sure related with that, how about you?)

And yet, in spite of his weakness, God chose to take this cowardly farmer and make him into a “mighty warrior” in order to deliver a suffering people from unjust oppression. Gideon described himself as the weakest of the weak. And in many ways, he was. He was an unlikely hero. But as it turns out, God is rather fond of using flawed, failed, ordinary people:

• Gideon was afraid
• Abraham was old,
• Jacob was insecure,
• John the Baptist was a weirdo with a beardo,
• Job was bankrupt,
• Leah was unattractive,
• Noah drank too much,
• Joseph was abused,
• Moses had a stuttering problem,
• Samson was a womanizer,
• Rahab was a prostitute,
• David was a murderer, adulterer & had kinds of family problems,
• Elijah was suicidal,
• Jeremiah was depressed,
• Jonah ran from God,
• Naomi was a widow,
• Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered,
• Martha was a worrier,
• the Samaritan woman had (not one, but) several failed marriages,
• Zacchaeus was unpopular,
• Thomas was a skeptic and a doubter,
• Paul had health issues and was unimpressive in person,
• Timothy was too young and too timid.
• AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON

Everyone has an excuse. Everyone has issues. Everyone is weak in their own way. But being weak doesn’t make you unique, it only makes you human. And this weakness is precisely where God loves to do his most powerful work. It is in the midst of our own weakness that God’s strength is so greatly contrasted and put on display for the world to see.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV)

Your weakness + God’s strength = just enough. 

Reasonable Rebellion

Have you ever talked yourself out of what you knew was God’s will?

Have you ever come up with enough reasoned your way out of obedience?

The Israelites did.  40 years in the desert was the result.  Instead of the Promised Land they got waste land.  Instead of settling they continued wandering.  Instead of milk & honey they got mucho manna.

Beware thinking you are smarter than God. 

They had their reasons.

Just like we have our reasons.

But not all their reasons were accurate.

Just like ours.

Let’s look into the back story of Numbers 13 & 14 to find out their five types of reasons.

• Real reasons.  The facts.  The truth.  Numbers 13:28 records what the spies found in the land - the land God had promised to give them, the land God said that He would  assist them to drive out all the peoples there.  There facts: the people were powerful; the cities were large & fortified; Anakites - the descendants of giants were among the people there.  These facts led to fear.  Fear led to a twisting & exaggerating the facts.  Admit it.  You & I do it too.  The facts seem overwhelming & fear beats a retreat.
• Apparent reasons.  Believed to be true.  Number 13:31 has scouts reporting “they are stronger than we are.”  I’d agree they may have appeared stronger.  But you know the cliche about appearances.  Think about the amazing, miraculous things these folks had witnessed - the plagues in Egypt, fire by day & a cloud by night, & manna from heaven to name only a few.  These folks should have had all the faith in the world.  Should have.  Just like those of us who have seen God’s mighty hand before & forget it at each new challenge.
• Exaggerated reasons.  Plain falsehood.  Untrue.  In Numbers 13:32 the faithless fibbers go on to say “All the people we saw there are of great size.”  Oh, really?  Didn’t you just tell us that there was only one group - the Anakites - that were?  You named five other normal size peoples (13:29), but now you are stretching the truth a bit to say they are of gigantic proportions too?  Human nature hasn’t changed in 3000+ years.  They did what we do.  Shade the meaning.  Exaggerate the truth.  Stretch it a little.  All to stay safe or save face or keep comfortable.
• Perceived reasons.  Accepted as truth.  But how would you really know with no confirmation.  The faithless spies reported in Number 13:33, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our eyes, and we looked the same to them.”  Are you joking?  As if you bunch of cowards even asked them, “Do we look like grasshoppers to you?”  You can not truly know another’s perception of reality.  But we still guess at it & label ourselves & allow such untruth to masquerade as reality even today, don’t we?
• Imagined reasons.  Might be true - without God.  Numbers 14:3 contains the realistic fear of the people that their women & children would be captured & enslaved.  Realistic without the amazing, miraculous power of Almighty God on their side.  The God who promised.  The God who provided.  The God who they had seen do so many mighty works.  Yet, even now, we tend to doubt God’s calling when His will seems too big, too far, too hard.

Armed with their reasons - some real, but most not - they were “unwilling to go up & rebelled” against God’s will (Deuteronomy 1:26).  And God, merciful as He had been, judged them.  They got nearly four more decades of laps around the wilderness mountain until the entire faithless generation had passed away.  Of that rebellious generation, only the faithful Joshua & Caleb entered into the Promised Land.

Do you ever feel as if you are wandering in the wilderness?

Do you know of any willful sin in your life?

God in His sovereignty either causes or allows every circumstance of our lives to to draw us to & conform us to the image of Christ.  Seek His will.  Make sure you are not living in rebellion.  Even a reasonable rebellion.

Questions

I tend to ask lots of questions.  And, yes, if you know me, you know that I have lots of answers as well.  In general, I talk plenty.  A lot.

But you also know that I am thoughtful.  I'm always trying to figure things out.  And, as a Christ follower, I wish that I could understand many things much better than I do.  I'd love to be able to live better, live different, more sin free, more pain free for me & others.

If I could only understand, then I could fix it.

Or at least try my best.

If I could only understand it, then I could accept it.

Well, maybe accept it better.

I look at the world around me.  Pain.  Injustice.  Problems. So much I wish I could change.

And more than just the nameless, faceless masses I look at the lives of those I love.  I see their distress.  I hear their pain. I feel their struggle.  I grieve their questions.

How.  How did this happen?  We'd like to know.  In order to understand.  To keep from making the same mistake again.  If that is possible.  Or simply to be satisfied with an answer.  Even if it still hurts.  At least we know how it happened.  We can understand.  Or we can assign blame.  The knowledge of how gives a small sense of control.

Why.  Why did this happen?  We always want to know.  It helps to have an explanation.  But sometimes there is not  one.  Or the one we get just seems so wrong.  Unjust.  Difficult.  Painful.  There is nothing wrong with the question why.  But - when faced with something that seems unanswerable or terribly difficult - it is not always the most productive question.

What.  For a Christ follower in the midst of difficulty the best question may be what.  Trusting God's sovereignty - that He either causes or allows all things that touch my life - I can ask how & why, but what may be the best question to move ahead. Specifically: What can I learn from this circumstance?  

It's a humble posture.  A learning posture.  A trusting posture.  A mind that is settled on the sovereignty of God. A heart that rests in the love of God.  A spirit that says something like this:

God, I believe you control all things.  Anything affecting my life you have either caused or allowed into my life.  Everything affecting my life you can use for your glory & my growth.  So, God, while I'm here, in the midst of this difficult circumstance, what would you have me learn?

Questions are many.  Answers may be few.  God is One.  Seek Him.

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.  Deuteronomy 4:29

Who.  That's one more question.  And this who - the Ultimate Who - can provide an answer to every question.  If from there.  Wherever your there is.  Whatever circumstance.  Whatever trouble.  Seek Him.