Yesterday Craig Cabaniss preached a message from Psalm 115 about the faithfulness of God in honor of our 5 year anniversary of a church plant.

His reference to the "steadfast love of God" (from the Hebrew word 'hesed') as the unique love of God in Christ Jesus made me think of a particular verse in Eph. 2 that has brought clarity and focus for me regarding God's love. It comes in verse 4.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us"

This verse is tucked between towering phrases of us being "children of wrath" (v. 3), and being "dead in our trespasses," followed by the momentous reality that we are "made alive together with Christ (v. 5)."

Those two realities: our being justifiably objects of God's wrath and the good news of being "alive," "saved," "raised," and "seated" in Him (v. 5-6) can demand such clarity in a day where they are being dismissed that you can miss why God would ever do such a thing in the first place.

Did you miss it?

Why does he do that with people who left to themselves could care less? Why does he raise the dead when "like the rest" they aren't looking to be alive to anything else but what the world offers?

Notice the reasons why God makes dead people live again:

1. "Being rich in mercy" Notice that God doesn't discover mercy. He doesn't go searching for it somewhere. There is no place outside of himself where a treasure trove of mercy exists that replenishes his supply. Rather--he IS merciful "being" rich in mercy--never "becoming" rich in mercy. God is not becoming merciful with time. He is mercy. Moreover--he's RICH in mercy. All mercy demonstrated in the world today find it's source in him alone.

2. ..."with which he loved us" Before we get to the middle part of the verse notice that God loves us. Don't move past that like you've heard that enough from TV evangelists and we need to get to something more objective and sturdy--and less emotional. There is no greater news than that God loves us. If God comes to us through a Christ that deeply hates us and rewards us with a heaven in which he exists irritated and distant from those He made alive we worship a God of deism. Holy and terrifying and logically distant--cold--and ultimately needy to serve him. Because he doesn't love those he redeems he lacks something they must provide through service. But God lacks nothing and loves freely the unlovely.

But how does He love us? Of what kind of love is this? Catch the middle phrase...

3. .."because of the great love.." Notice that Paul qualifies God's love with the phrase, "the great love." I believe Paul wants to separate in our minds the love that we operate from and the love that God operates from. God loves of a particular kind of love. A "great" love. This love is not a small love. A temporal love. A love you are familiar with. It's not a love that is similar to our love and finds it's reflection from us. It's a love that wholly and completely "other" and set apart. It comes from him in an overflowing and ultimately downward direction. We call this "grace."

It's unique.
It's different.
It's strange.
It's lasting.
It's eternal.
It's His alone.

John used language similar to Paul when he wrote...

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him (John 3:1)."

And what is this "kind" of love we are to behold? Where do we see it most clearly?

Let John Owen answer this question for us...

"[Jesus Christ is the] medium of all communication between God and us. In him we meet, in him we walk. All influences of love, kindness, mercy, from God to us, are through him; all our returns of love, delight, faith, obedience unto God, are all through him."

Look at Jesus Christ and you see the embodiment of God's love to us.

As a pastor it can sometimes feel like I go from one circle of Christians to another to another to another. I am reading Christian books, reading Christian tweets, thinking and talking about the church world all day long. I am aware of mega-churches in and near my city I respect and some of the things they're doing. I am aware of the church-planting movement I'm a part of and others around the country as well. So, given my default mindset--I can operate with some false assumptions about how people in the South have heard the gospel.

I was recently reminded of this on a trip to a sister church in Midland of the desperate state of the religious South to hear the gospel for the first time.

As we did a kind of prayer ministry around the homes of the church a person from my team and I found an open door to talk about Christ with a worker in his 20s.

He was a bright, intelligent, hard-working guy. He was easy to talk to--just "good-ole-boy" for those who enjoyed the Dukes growing up. I liked talking to him. His thoughts concerning religion went something like this.

"Hey I appreciate what you guys are doing...I'm a Christian too...I was saved and baptized as a kid. I don't really have any interest in going to a church--but I know I'll see St. Peter at the pearly gates when I die...I'm good."

Although our mission was to demonstrate the love of Christ through prayer and inviting people to a gospel-class a month away--he seemed open to talking.

"How do you know you'll go to heaven--how do you have confidence of that?"

"Because I'm a good person." [confidently]

He went on to explain that he had never murdered anybody--and that being a good person was all that you needed to be sure of eternal life.

"Why did Jesus die on the cross?"

"For our sins...." [confidently]

But how do you know that you're going to heaven?

"Because I'm a good person..." [confidently]

We asked him if someone can be good enough to earn their way to heaven--why he thought God would ever allow his Son to be killed for sins.

Although he did express that he had never considered that--his thoughts stayed fixed in dual objects in his mind. His hope being grounded in two religious activities. 1. He was a good person based on the moral standards of our time. 2. He did believe in Jesus and performed what was required as a child to know he'd go to heaven when he died.

For the majority of people who live next to us and drive past our churches--never forget the power of these two religious activities in our land. These are the greatest obstacles to overcome in the religious South.

1. I believe in Jesus (and performed a religious activity to prove it).
2. I'm a good person.

I was reminded even if for a moment--to forget the fact that their is a church on every corner in my city.

Forget the thought that people in my neighborhood must have heard the gospel by now--surely!

Forget my assumptions that someone's told them or that they know the gospel--and are just hardened to the truth.

Forget that they're probably on someone's prayer list--and someone must be praying fervently for them.

Rather--assume they've never heard.

Assume they have never heard the good news that a holy God created them in His image--fashioned them for his glory and sent His one and only Son to live, die and rise for them--because in their rejection of God as King could do absolutely nothing else to be redeemed, restored, and made alive again.

Assume no one has ever told them the real gospel. Assume that they've heard a message of religious activity and morality cloaked in Christian jargon.

Now let's go one step further on the mission and assume God sent us as missionary ambassadors to tell them the refreshing news they've never heard before. Assume we're called to live strategically, intentionally, and sacrificially so that they might be rescued from deep fried Southern religion.

Lord--send us out with urgency and desperation to the religious South and help us to lovingly and graciously demonstrate and declare that You rose from the dead to save us from our religion.

 

1.     I love your joy. Your smile and your laugh is contagious—and you suffer from the same thing your Daddy does—the ability to smile at the most inappropriate times.

 

2.     I love your mind. The way you can enter a whole world through your imagination. You love to pretend—and we love to watch you pretend (and spray the sound effects all over the living room).

 

3.     I love your personality. You enjoy taking the smallest and most random part of a toy and focusing all your energy and enthusiasm on it for hours. Very strange—but very cool.

 

4.     I love that you sing. I love hearing songs come out of you when your playing—and hearing you ask for music when we’re driving.

 

5.     I love that you are mine and I get to enjoy you every day. I will never stop loving you Joel.  

 

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 328 1872 Grace Church 15 3 2298 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false One enjoyable memory that will stay with me from the T4G conference in Louisville was going with a friend from the church to eat sushi for the first time with some of his friends from Detroit Michigan.

The memory will stay with me for at least two reasons.

First, it was my first time to go sushi I decided to really go for it. I feasted on raw fish and even ate an eel ninja role that tasted just like it sounds. Unfortunately I made it through about 20 minutes of Al Mohler’s session before I got sick and spent the rest of the evening in my hotel room. Sorry Al. It really was the sushi.

Secondly, I learned a little bit more about Detroit. My new friends talked about the difficulty the city has experienced for years—how racial tensions still cast a dark cloud over the city—about how all of them would love to move out but are upside down on their homes because of the depressed economy (I’m talking about a lot folks). I also learned that Detroit has huge pockets of cultures including one of the highest Arab populations in the country helped along by the auto industry for years.

 

What struck me about this conversation was that I was recently talking to my wife about a recent Forbes listing of “Top Cities for Jobs.” Texas has the top 5 on their list (Starting with Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio).

 

While discussing what this means for Texas in years to come we discovered their list of “America’s Most Miserable Cities” with Detroit coming in #7 among major cities.  Among the reasons given are the scandals surrounding its mayor, continued decline of the auto industry, and the highest crime rate of any major city in the US. Only the success of the Red Wings and the winnings of the Pistons seemed to knock it off of its 2007 crown of Most Miserable City.

So, with all the people moving out of the city, and the growing rise of urban church planting, I wondered if anyone was moving IN to this city. I discovered this article and was encouraged by the families that have partnered together at great cost to advance the good news of Jesus to a city in need of joy.

So, I asked myself the same question I ask you.

Would you move to a miserable city for its joy in Jesus?

 

10 years ago I was a student at Sam Houston State University finishing my final semester. Michelle and I had just married that December and were planning our move to a seminary. I am able to remember a number of things that have greater and lesser value. I remember rent was cheap ($325 according to Michelle) but still too expensive. I remember my truck note was $242.34. I remember reading Desiring God that spring for the first time with a friend.

 

And among Christian music that appealed to college students like us--I remember Jennifer Knapp was the rage.

 

I can remember watching her interviews on a TV in a dorm room. I can still here her album Kansas playing in the halls of a church we were painting on a spring break mission trip to San Antonio. I can hear my wife singing along with her in my father-in-laws Miata on the way to see my youth kids on a Wednesday night.

 

It's not that she was cutting-edge innovative with her sound. It's not that she was able to capture a successful artist of pop culture, mirror it, and then successfully market her version to a new and more sophisticated Christian music genre. It's not even that she was authentic and honest about struggles and able to musically incarnate the Christian life like no one else at the time could--or would.

 

It's that she seemed biblical. 

 

Yes--she was authentic with her struggles. Yes--she was a gifted writer who could express human need and do so through a unique and engaging sound. Lot’s of people do that well. But she did all of this in great musical ability while remaining tethered to Scripture.

 

She wrote songs of repentance like this called Refine Me...

 

Lord...
Come with your fire, burn my desires
Refine me
Lord...
My will has deceived me, please come and free me
Refine me

My heart can't see, when I only look at me
My soul can't hear, when I only think of my own fears.

And they are gone in a moment, your forever the same
Why did I look away from you, how can I speak your name 

 

What makes the recent news about Jennifer Knapp discouraging for me is not just that we now know for certain that she's had homosexual attraction. It's not she's still making music and seeking to express these realities in the form of song. It's not that she fears the judgmental thoughts of conservative evangelicals. The reality is that there are increasing numbers of faithful believers who feel they must struggle silently with homosexual sin because of the shame and embarrassment attached to this temptation, or fear of isolation if they were to share with others.

 

It’s that for 8 years she has pursued a homosexual relationship as a professing Christian, expresses that these desires have presented no struggle in her relationship with God, and finds her comfort to continue in a homosexual lifestyle from the Bible.

 

When asked how she struggled with the advice of her Christian friends who disagreed with her position of pursuing a same-sex relationship while confessing faith in Christ she claims...

 

The Bible has literally saved my life. I find myself between a rock and a hard place—between the conservative evangelical who uses what most people refer to as the "clobber verses" to refer to this loving relationship as an abomination, while they're eating shellfish and wearing clothes of five different fabrics, and various other Scriptures we could argue about. I'm not capable of getting into the theological argument as to whether or not we should or shouldn't allow homosexuals within our church. There's a spirit that overrides that for me, and what I've been gravitating to in Christ and why I became a Christian in the first place.

 

I'll have to admit that I was surprised to see the role the Bible has played for her in all of this. In the wake of rejection of friends who challenged her confession, the rejection of the conservative evangelical world she alludes to in the article, and the confusion of her fans, she has found solace and comfort in the pages of Scripture. As much as I'm glad that in all of this she has continued to turn to the Bible for comfort, I want to challenge Jennifer Knapp (and really anyone who reads this!) with some thoughts regarding this approach to Scripture.

 

1. You can find justification for nearly anything you want in the Bible. Do you want to commit adultery? Lie to your boss? Leave your family? Kill your cat? You can find comfort for any or all of these activities from words in the Bible. However, know that to do this you must take your comforts out of both immediate context where they are found as well as from the vast scope of Scripture. In other words, you can find real subjective encouragement to commit sin from actual promises meant to bring encouragement. However, you must ignore the immediate and broader context as well as explicit conditions to those promises.

 

You can’t have the words of Jesus and ignore the words of His apostle Paul (Rom. 1:1). This is often the direction defenders of homosexuality go.  Moreover you cannot embrace certain truths of Scripture and ignore others. That intros the next point.

 

2. You can't ignore topics in Scripture that are glaring in clarity by pointing to topics that are aren’t. I doubt many Christians reading this statement in CT knew what she meant by shellfish and “five different fabrics.” That’s okay. Knapp is referring to obscure regulations under the Levitical Law that God gave to separate the people of God from all the peoples of the world. She knows better than to use ceremonial laws fulfilled in the person and work of Christ to blank out clearer and more glaring warnings given to the church under a much greater age of new covenant grace and freedom (Rom. 6:14).  R.C. Sproul has wisely said “it is always dangerous to shout where God has whispered.” Knapp is reversing this in her statement.

 

3.  It is always a dangerous thing to ignore the objective, and sanctify the subjective.  Do a study on every cult that exists today from Mormonism to Scientology and you will find the same rejection of comprehensive objective truth to back up their “faith” and a wild elevation of the subjective. One needs only to “feel” a certain way or “sense” something to be true to dismiss the vacuous pits where objective truths don’t exist. Knapp seems to be dangerously friendly with the subjective when she claims that her Christianity has a “spirit that overrides” theological claims that say her lifestyle is wrong.  I’m opposed to taking any portion of Scripture to wield as “clobber verses,” but she is in essence using the same tactic when she lays final authority on her feelings in such a way that denies what the Bible teaches. 

 

My hope for Jennifer is that she is a true Christian and presently deceived about this area of sin. If so, her statements about having no “struggle” in her conscience I hope are overstatements (1 John 3:6). If so, my heart for her is the same for anyone who struggles with same-sex attraction--keep in step with the Spirit of Christ and fight these desires knowing that greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world (Gal. 5:22-26; 1 John 4:4). To quote Mark Dever, “gamble on His faithfulness” to uphold you according to 1 Cor. 10:13.  Seek out believers who have experienced victory in this area of sin through His word and through His church. They are a growing faithful.

 

If not, my hope is that she would believe for the first time the words of her song Romans from the album Kansas and call on the One who is able to save anyone who calls on Him from the laws of sin and death…

 

Stop stop stop, This foolish pride of mine
that dares to drag me far away from you.
When I try to do it my way
I always lose, I always lose, your point of view.

Oh, I don't have to be condemned
Jesus Saved me from the laws of sin.
If I fall, I'll try again.
With the Spirit as my guide,
I won't ever have to hide again. 

 

 

Fascinating video journals on a project that is revealing in regards to observations on culture and challenging in regards to mission. Great thoughts from Carolyn McCulley about this project.

With the Launch of REACH--our college ministry at Grace Church--we've been going on campus inviting people out to our Thursday night "non religious" Bible study.

One conversation I had recently was with a very open and friendly student who held to a general belief in God (who he referenced as the Omega), but had serious issues with the biblical portrayal of God. Specifically, he took issue with the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and the tower of Babel. Although he was missing some details he recalled stories from his Catholic upbringing well and was able to articulate his concerns thoughtfully.

His questions came raw and real. His vision of God is distant and uncaring.

"I mean, why would God put a tree in the middle of the garden just to set us up for failure? Like...thanks a lot."

Regarding the tower of Babel, "Why would he get so mad at people for building a tower to get to heaven when we all end up there anyway?"

His concerns echo the thoughts of an unbeliever at REACH last night. In discussion groups one visitor understood Jesus only as "hope" for people who believe but didn't hold to the Christian understanding of Jesus as a resurrected, real, and returning.

Agnosticism, cynicism, and unbelief aren't isolated to the urban wilderness, but live in the brass buckle of the Bible belt. Moreover, it may thrive in a culture that easily touches religion, and where having some experience or connection with a myriad of churches comes easily--but just as easily comes to reject what they've seen as an uncompelling witness to Jesus.

We went out on campus at Quad C this week to invite people to REACH--our college ministry Bible study at It's a Grind. We had a great time doing it. It had been a while since being on a college campus so it was refreshing in a lot of ways. Both UNT and Quad C reveal the same desperate needs college students face that I remember from over 10 years ago.

One of the funniest encounters was what seemed to me to be the a-typical response to a Bible study invite from someone on a college campus to my friends humble invite. When he mentioned there would be burgers etc. he asked,

"Is there gonna be beer?"

Okay. Let's assume the best of intentions in this question for a moment. Maybe he felt that beer would be as effective as burgers as a free commodity for a Bible study in the buckle of the Bible-belt hosted by a church to largely under-age students. Maybe he felt it's pointless to invite college students to something without it and this is helpful information. Or maybe he really, really, really likes beer. I get that. I don't have anything against beer. Honest.

But maybe not.

Maybe, just maybe, after 30+ years of Hollywood glamorizing the fullness of the college experience as a 5+ year keg party it still sells tickets for movies in August and makes it's way to the lips of students at times to deflect the idea of pursuing anything of seriousness. Maybe it's still an effective trump card to out-awkward a potential threat to freedom.

Maybe the world, the devil, and the flesh still encourage people to hide behind false images and turn this poor drink into a weak, unfit, and useless god.

No. No beer at the Bible study. But lots and lots of the best vintage wine (Acts 2:13; Eph. 5:18; Matt. 9:17)