Going on towards maturity...

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity..."

Hebrews 5:12-6:1a

So I was listening to sermons earlier today and yesterday that pertained for the most part to stepping into biblical adulthood or maturity. The most recent sermon basically talked about how adolescence in and of itself is a lie of our culture and a delusion. That in scripture there is nothing to support the idea of an in between stage in our development into adulthood. That adolescence is essentially this stage that our culture has developed within the last 60 years or so that is a stage where children begin to experience the pleasures or benefits of adulthood without the responsibility of it, a sort of "testing the waters" stage. Yet, in the Bible we more see that you are either a child or you are a man, but how does one know when they have reached adulthood and passed from being a "little child" to being a "young man" (1 John 2:12-14)?

Society has altogether done away with any sort of rite of passage into manhood, and so within our society we have, what many have dubbed "an epidemic of extended adolescence" or as Mark Driscoll calls it "boys who can shave". I believe that this aspect of our culture has bled into even our faith, which is something through out the New Testament that Paul often warns churches not to be taken in with "fine-sounding/ plausible arguments" (Colossians 2:4) not, "Let no one delude you with crazy and outlandish arguments" but rather plausible ones, and adolescence seems to be a plausible argument to me.

One of the things that the letter to the Colossians was addressing was syncretism, which is, according to wikipedia, "the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought". It seems to me that this is where we find ourselves as a Church. Much like the Colossians we have allowed unbiblical teaching and schools of thought from our society to influence our religion, but James says that "pure and undefiled religion is one that remains "unstained by the world"...the very thing that we allow to happen in many ways. I believe that we have allowed this idea of adolescence to come into our development into spiritual maturity as well. Really I can only speak for myself and say that I know that I have allowed this to happen in a variety of ways.

There are many things that we accept into our religion that do not hold true to the sound doctrine God has given us or the Gospel that has been entrusted to us, and I wonder how we as a Church have allowed these things to hold us back from moving on from the elementary teachings about Christ towards maturity. What have we allowed us to keep us from growing in godliness, or living our lives according to the word. I'm finding myself to feel much like Francis Chan, seeing what God commands in scripture and seeing my life in the light that His Word provides and finding that my life does not match up and that I don't look as good as I think I do. I have found that I am a lot like the crowd that Jesus was addressing when He said, "Why do say to me 'Lord, Lord' but do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46), and I don't think that responding with, "Sorry, I was taught a different interpretation of Your word." or "Sorry, what You asked of me was just to much to carry out.", is really going to get very far because ultimately I am the one who is accountable for my view of God and my interpretation and application of scripture. I will not be able to defer the blame to being a victim of society or bad teaching, and so something in me has to change even if what is being asked of me seems like too much to bear. God has given us all that we need for "life and godliness" even if we feel foolish, and desperately wicked, and that we don't have what it takes most of the time.

Jesus wants the Rose.

"The Fellowship of the Unashamed."

So I have just gotten done listening to what my mind wants to call a radical sermon, but my Spirit tells me it isn't radical it is just biblical.

It was a sermon by a man named Tullian Tchividjian, which that name deserves a sermon in and of itself, but the sermon was entitled "Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything". The basic gist of what he was preaching was that it is the Power of the Gospel and it alone that changes and transforms us and continues to do so throughout our lives. We are not the result of discipline and determination, rather we are the result of the Spirit of God transforming us through the life, the death, and resurrection of Christ, reconciling us to the Father and fulfilling all requirements of the law that we might be free to live not for ourselves but for Him, who for our sake gave His life, being motivated by Christ's love for us which we are incapable of being separated from and all of this done not by looking at and evaluating what we need to do better and how we need to grow but rather by looking back at what Jesus Himself has already done and accomplished and earned for us.

In light of this reality, spiritual growth does not look like me doing better me looking better, but rather it looks like us understanding in a greater and more colorful the essence of the Gospel which is that God in Christ has done everything. We live under the banner of "It Is Finished!". Christ has accomplished everything for us, freeing us up to where we have to do nothing. He was strong for me, which frees me to be weak. He succeeded for me which frees me to fail.

"So this is the question. What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? That will set you free. Because what’s ironic about this is, once the gospel frees you from the enslaving pressure to do anything for Jesus, you’ll want to do everything for Jesus. There is this remarkable fear that if you preach the radicalism of God’s unconditional grace, people are going to take advantage of it and they’re going to go off the deep end. Parents are afraid of that and preachers are afraid of it. It’s not true. Think about this. The more assured I am of my wife’s unconditional love for me, whether I’m being nice or not nice, the more assured I am that she will love me just the same whether I’m in a good mood or a bad mood, whether I’m being nice or mean, that makes me want to be nice. This idea of “Yeah, grace but. . .” is not what Paul says in Romans 6. He speaks about the radical substitutionary life and death of Christ in Romans 5, and then he begins Romans 6 by saying, “I know what you’re thinking. Shall we sin more so that grace may abound?” His preaching led to someone asking that question. That’s how scandalous grace is. The preaching of the gospel should cause people to ask that question. And Paul goes on to say, “By no means.” And what you would expect him to do in that moment is to put the breaks on grace and give a little law. “Let me maintain some spiritual equilibrium here. I’ve given you grace. Now let me give you law and balance things out.” That’s not what he does. What he does is go deeper into grace. He actually probes the gospel more, not less. So this idea that grace is dangerous and needs to be kept in check is the devil’s lie. Yes, it will mess up your hair. Yes, it’s undomesticated. Yes, it will wrestle control out of your hands. Yes, it’s scary because it’s uncontrollable and it’s untamable, but it’s the only power that can melt a human heart." ~ Tullian Tchividjian

In this sermon Tullian preaches out of Colossians 1:9-14, in which we are told that we have been redeemed, qualified, forgiven and transferred from darkness into light. Those things have already been done and Paul's prayer for the saints is that they would grow not in external behavior, being able to do the right things and not do the wrong things, but rather that they would "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord...". The action comes out of the growing in knowledge and understanding. In Philippians it says "I pray that your love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight..". Every time that Paul gives commands to church of how they ought to live in light of the Gospel it never precedes the Gospel. He always first tells them what God has done from them already in Christ Jesus because that is our fuel to live in a manner worthy of the Lord. "For Christ's love compels us..." to live not for ourselves but for Him who for our sakes died. It is not our love for Jesus that compels us, it is Christ's love for us that compels us. For we love because He first loved us. Our weak, tired, and selfish love was never meant to be transformative, but God's love for us is transformative and is what inspires our own love for Him.

If it is grace plus something then Christ's life and death counts for nothing, therefore it must only be Christ's life and death and resurrection....alone.

But let's be honest most of us agree to this and are even thinking that of course this is true for our justification, but what about for our sanctification. Don't you have to read your Bible and pray and meditate and fellowship with other believers and evangelize? So we have become like the "foolish Galatians" who Paul asks "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" So having been justified by grace through faith alone are we now trying to be sanctified by the flesh or by "grace plus..."


"Do you want to know what sanctification is? It’s a big theological word for Christian growth. The best definition of sanctification I can find is this. Sanctification is simply getting used to your justification. Sanctification is receiving Christ’s words “It is finished” into our rebellious regions of unbelief. I tell people all the time, “Preach the gospel to yourself every day.” People come up to me and go, “What do you mean?” So I point them here to Colossians 1:12b-14. I tell them that preaching the gospel to yourself every day means that you go back to these verses and come to a greater, bigger, deeper, brighter realization that you have already been qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed and forgiven. Martin Luther said it best when he said, “To progress is to always to begin again.” Going forward requires a daily going backwards. Backwards to what? Backwards to the reality of what has already been accomplished for you. It’s going back to the already secured reality of your justification and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. It’s living in these verses. The apostle Paul never tells us what to do before he tells us what God, in Christ, has already done, ever. Colossians is four chapters. In the first two chapters, all he talks about is what God, in Christ, has done. It’s not until he gets to chapter three that he says, “Therefore, in light of all that God has done for you in Christ, go out and live this way.” We tend to skip over chapters one and two in our thinking. We think much more about what we need to do, and then we run out of gas. Because the engine that is powering us forward is not the gospel. It’s willpower, it’s self-righteousness or it’s something smaller than the gospel. So we conk out." ~ Tullian Tchividjian

This last little bit is another excerpt from the Sermon I listened to (which you also can listen to on thevillagechurch.net/sermons, if you'd like which I'd highly recommend), and this first part is quote I have heard before though I'm not sure who wrote it and it is called "The Fellowship of the Unashamed". this is how he concluded the sermon.

" 'I am a part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus. Therefore, I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present is empowered and my future is secure. I’m done with low living, sight waking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, praise or popularity. I don’t have to win, be first, be right, recognized, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, love with patience, live by prayer and labor with power. My goal is God’s glory, my face is set, my pace is fast, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won’t give up, shut up, let up or slow up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up and spoken up for the cause of Christ. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till He stops me. Christ has qualified me to become a part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. I am His and He is mine.' 

"Now that kind of life cannot be lived apart from the power of the gospel. It’s when you come to the heart realization that it is finished, when you come to the heart realization that Jesus plus nothing equals everything and that everything minus Jesus equals nothing, until that grips your heart, then you will continue to live in a posture of slavery. Paul said in Galatians, “Christ has come. It is for freedom that He has set us free.” Jesus said, “I have come to set the captives free.” So if you’re a Christian, you’re free. You’re free to succeed, you’re free to fail. You’re free to win, you’re free to lose. You’re free because Jesus paid it all. It’s finished, and that’s good news." ~ Tullian Tchividjian

"Let Me love you."

Recently, the Lord reminded me of the fact that He does not treat me or receive me in the way that I expect him too....He is much kinder and much more loving than I give Him credit for.

Almost 2 years ago now I went traveling with a certain Curt Vernon on a road trip the likes of which neither of us were very prepared for...once again god had much different plans than I did. I expected that this trip (living in a van for a year praying and loving on people we found) was going to be a lot of fun, that it was going to be a time of great growth and development, and that it was going to be easy...I was very wrong. Looking back I can now see that I should have known that if I was expecting growth and development that I should have known to expect to encounter trials of many kinds for the testing of my faith so that it might produce perseverance in me and a genuine faith that has been refined by the fire.

Long story short...throughout the whole trip God was exposing sin in our hearts and in our lives and he was using each of us to speak truth into the other's life, and in the midst of all of our conviction and desire for true repentance the enemy came in and twisted conviction into guilt, shame, and condemnation to bring disunity between Curt and I. It was a very difficult time which the Lord brought a lot of beauty out of as He promises to always do for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

So that sets the stage for what is on my heart of God receiving us differently than we expect or feel we deserve. Somewhere in the middle of all of this God exposed a fear I had (of being rejected or cast off by God when I was in sin) by giving me a picture of what I thought that would look like. It was a picture of me "coming boldly before god's throne of grace to receive mercy in my time of need" and as I approached the throne I flung my face on God's lap and began to weep. As I did God the Father sat unmoved, cold, and apathetic. the picture really laid my heart bare and I knew that couldn't be the way that God really recieved me, but as I asked the Holy Spirit what it really looked like I just sensed that He was telling me that He would show me at the right time and for me to just wait...that I would know when it happened.

So...fast forward a couple of days, and I'm sitting in a living room with Curt, and my new friend Tommy Jaggers, and the woman he is now married to, and we are worshiping. Curt is playing the guitar, and we are each praying or singing along or something along those lines of what we call worship. Curt begins to play a song that he wrote called "How Could I..." which I will allow him to tell the story behind since it's his story and not mine, and as he begins to play this song something that still blows my mind to this day...The Lord began to give me what I have heard referred to as an open vision (almost like you are watching a movie or something play out in front of you through your mind's eye).

My eyes were closed but I saw everything in the room. I saw Curt playing guitar, I saw Tommy with head bowed praying and I saw his wife singing along with Curt, and as my eyes glanced around the room I looked down at the foot of my chair and I saw Jesus, kneeling in front of me with His face buried in my lap weeping. Suddenly, I saw that it wasn't Jesus who was the one reluctant to recieve me but that I was reluctant to receive Him. It made me very uncomfortable having Him just sitting there weeping over me, I was very taken aback and didn't know what to do. So...naturally, when I didn't know how to respond, I began to cry also.

Just then He began to look up at me with tears in His eyes, and it was then I realized He was crying because I had sinned, He wasn't crying because I had messed up, rather, He was crying because He loved me and He wanted me to come to him instead of running away in fear and shame. Then He pulled out a basin of water and just stared at me, waiting to wash my feet. He never spoke a word audibly, but His eyes said everything, I could just see His heart and feel it in His eyes. Then what began to happen between us was like the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in the Upper Room. "Never Lord, You'll never wash my feet..." , "Unless I wash Your feet, you will have no part in Me." Except I was not so quick to give in as Peter was I continued to argue and explain how unworthy I was and how wrong it was for Him to wash my feet until finally He spoke.

 "I want to serve you, but you must humble yourself and allow Me to serve you. I want to love you, but you must humble yourself and receive My love. Don't argue with me any longer on this matter. I love you, having taken all things into account and knowing everything about you I have decided that I want you all for myself, and have chosen to love you with a love that keeps no record of wrongs and with a love that never changes. Let Me love you."

I had to choose to physically lower my feet to the ground and allow Him to wash my feet, and after doing so He embraced me, and the vision ended. To this day it was probably the most profound encounter I have ever had with the God and am still at a loss when I think about it. It just doesn't seem real and it is hard to explain...I mean, I could smell Him...I could feel Him. My words do little justice to how amazing it all was, and to the God who would make Himself a slave to love a people ill-deserving of His love and His constant advances to woo them and to capture their heart. In these moments God serves us in ways that words cannot express and loves us beyond all reason and expectation.

So...I see in scripture that God not only loved people in a way that was outrageous and embarrassing, as we see with Him defying every social expectation by calling a tax-collecting "sinner" like Zaccheus down from a tree to eat at his house that night and be a "friend of sinners", but we also see Jesus receive other people's love and affection in a way that is unexpected. John, the Beloved Disciple, leans back against Jesus and rests his head on God's chest as they recline at the table of the Last Supper. Jesus gently and lovingly responds to the outrageous assertions and requests of James and John to sit at His right hand in Glory or to call fire down on a town for not being hospitable to them. Jesus reinstates Peter by asking him three times if Peter loves Him after Peter denied knowing Him three times. Jesus allows a prostitute to kiss and wash His feet with her hair and tears as He is eating with the socially elite and when they speak against her affection He says that she has "done a beautiful thing " for Him. When a woman is brought before Jesus, having been caught in adultery and deserving of being stoned according to the Law of God, God doesn't condemn her but tells her to go in peace after having silenced all of her accusers.

Throughout the Gospels Jesus constantly shocks and surprises me with his actions and His love for sinners like me. I can't fathom it or take it all in that God could love like this. It feels like the kind of thing that you read about in story books but that couldn't possibly be real, or at least that it couldn't possibly be for me...right? But.....this is the Good News.

"This is how we know what love is: that, while we were yet sinners, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to die on our behalf....He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him....we were dead in our trespasses...but with the great love with which He loved us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ...and I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord...."

Because it's easy.

So for a while now I have been doing a lot fo thinking over scripture, and my view of God as He has revealed Himself to us in the bible, and I often find that my view of him falls short and sometimes I find myself in danger of creating for myself and idol rather than worshipping the  One True God. I don't think that I am a lone in this struggle, for I see it very often all around me. It is a really easy thing to do, creating an idol. John Calvin of Piper ofr Edawrds or some other insightful John figure once said "That the human heart is an idol factory." and that we are "master craftsmen of idols from birth". I find this all too true in my own heart. I believe that our greatest idol would be ourselves, and that every other thing that we feel tempted to se up as an idol (sex, love, marriage, money, power, etc.) is only tempting to us in so much as it brings us pleasure. These things that can bring us pleasure are more just in roads to being able to worship ourselves and love ourselves above God. If something doesn't bring us pleasure than it often isn't very tempting because we want to be pleased. This is why often the things that become idols or lead us to sin are not evil things or practices but are good things that are raised to place of being ultimate rather than just good, and so we set it up as a greater importance to us than God and buy the lie that it can bring us pleasure and life in greater abundance than God can, and often we become our source of our greatest joy and we want to be made much of rather than making much of God.

So anyway, as I have noticed this propensity in myself to love myself more than others and more than God, it occurred to me that I often do this with scripture and what I choose to believe about God, or rather what my actions demonstrate to myself and others about what I believe to be true about God. It is very easy to more readily accept and believe the easy scritpures that fit in with what I want and what is a norm in my culture rather than having to turn my life and my culture on it's head to live out what I see in scripture. It is easier to recieve scriptures that talk about God making much of me rather than the verses that say that I am like a flower that is blown away like chaff on the wind and I am remembered no more, because the point of it all is God anyway, not me. So there is this huge poropensity in myself to want what I want or believe what I want or think what I want because I want to, and God has a way of  thinking much differently than we do in fact Jesus straight up says in one of the Gospels that God does not value the things that men do. We put a huge empahsis on things that are unimportant and we would quickly take what makes us feel good rather than crucifying our flesh and dying to ourselves to make much of him which is our greatest joy anyway.

I dunno I could probably go on long tangent off of all of this, but it would be fruitless I just wanted to make anew post now that my facebook is gone and try to get in the habit of getting on here occasionally to share thoughts. I have just found God taking my view of Him and my interpretation of scrioture and flipping it on it's head, and I just wonder how much of scirpture do we interpret because it is the way that we've been told to interpret it all of our lives or because it easier or more comfortable to do so, and I know that in myself it is very easy to it for both of those reasons, but I know that my God is much bigger than I often see him to be and I don't want a lifeless idol of my own creating, I want to truly know God and walk with Him. So anyway, those are my thoughts, now I gotta go to work.