Skycast: Resurrected Jesus among the Churches

January 16, 2009 in Church in America
Tags: Book of Revelation, book review, Christians, grace, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Mike Yaconelli, NT Wright, podcast, PT Forsyth, Resurrection, Revelation, skycast, Surprised by Hope, the Church, The Justification of God, William Willimon

Friends,

Here is episode #2 of the Rain and Snow Skycast. In this episode, I finish my exploration of Revelation 1 by studying with you verses 9-21. I also included a book review of NT Wright’s book Surprised By Hope. I close the Skycast by talking about God’s grace and how the modern manifestation of the church seems to be lacking in grace to one another and those who are not like us. This is a serious, serious problem. The podcast opens with a quote from the book The Justification of God (or free here). by PT Forsyth which I believe serves as a great segue into my discussion of the contents of Revelation 1:9-21. This episode is about 34 minutes long. Thanks for stopping by. Tell your friends about the Rain and Snow Skycast. Thanks, and may God bless you as you search His Scripture, jerry

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A follow Up to Desperation: Grace and Faith

July 23, 2008 in Christianity, Church in America, Jesus
Tags: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Christianity, doubts, fears, grace, Jesus, Messy Spirituality, Mike Yaconelli

Friends,

I posted a day or two or three ago about being desperate for Jesus. I used a quote from Mike Yaconelli’s book Messy Spiritualityto convey the idea. Well I re-posted it at CRN.info and Analysis where I have been doing some writing and got some more good feedback from the readers there. One of the respondents asked me to clarify what I meant by ‘certainty’ and ‘desperation.’ He wrote:

Jerry,

Would you expound on the relationship between “certainty” and “desperation.” I think I know what ya mean, and probably agree…

As I see it, there are many things on which we can have certainty – the veracity of Scripture, our salvation, the uniqueness of Christ, etc… – yet in my own life I have been way too certain about things that are less obvious – dispensationalism for example.

Is this what ya meant?

Neil

And I responded:

Neil,

You know what it is? Last week I was at a camp with four kids from KCU. One has a 13 year old brother whose body is riddled with tumors.

I have a brother whose 30 year old brain is being crushed by a tumor. He is 30 years old and cannot control his piss any longer, eats paper, wanders aimlessly around the house. In short, he’s dying. 30.

I am about to take on a mortgage for my family, rejoice in God’s blessing, while others in the world are starving. Rejoice in all things, he says. And yet, I want this house so bad for my wife and sons and I shouldn’t feel badly that I have to have a place to live and that after 14 years of preaching I’m tired of living in a parsonage which provides nothing for my future or family.

I believe in Creation and the theological importance of such a belief. But what if Darwin was right? (I”m not interested in debating this so please spare me.) And why is what’s so obvious to me so hazy to others? (I’m not interested in debating so please don’t bother. Here I’m sharing those ‘certainties’ and ‘desperations.’)

What about all the lost? The Calvinist escapes this fear and angst by attributing all the lost to God’s just election. I cannot do that. Every person that dies without Christ tears me apart. What about hell? I don’t want to imagine it in any way.

What if David never really did exist?

What if I die some glad morning and I don’t have the requisite wings to fly away?

What if my sons grow older and end up hating God like my youngest brother does?

Why won’t my church grow even though I am preaching Sola Scriptura? Why does one man in the church continually harp on me about the length of the worship? Why have I been stuck preaching in small churches since the day I graduated while many of my peers have done far more?

Even on the mountain when Jesus ascended some doubted. The problem I have is that sometimes doubts have no answers.

Why have I had to struggle the way I have had to struggle with certain sins? No matter the prayers. No matter the faith. No matter the resistance. Struggle. Struggle. Struggle.

You know what it is? Grace. I cannot, no matter how much I believe and preach it, understand God’s grace. I am desperately clinging to that grace. Desperately.

PS. I don’t get dispensationalism either. Then again, I don’t get mathematics. I cannot reconcile Calvinism with Scripture and yet there are some who see nothing but ‘Calvinism.’ I don’t get ‘Left Behind’ and yet some see nothing but Left Behind. I play guitar and sing, but I don’t understand music. I am desperate.

But I’m learning that I am more desperate for Jesus than I am for answers.

I’m learning to live in the ambiguity of it all. Isn’t it strange that God could have give us straight answers–like the straight forward Laws of Leviticus–and yet he chose more often than not to give us ambiguity? Am I the only one who finds that strange, dissatisfying, and completely unfair?

I guess that’s what faith is about, huh?

jerry

Sorry for the long reply. Maybe this song is helpful to explain my position:

Well, sometimes my life
Just don’t make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, ’cause I’m shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It’s so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

Surrender don’t come natural to me
I’d rather fight You for something
I don’t really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I’ve beat my head against so many walls
Now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees

And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace

–Rich Mullins

These thoughts were also picked up by Eugene at Eugene Roberts Weblog. My point is not to boast about my insecurities concerning faith. To be sure, there are some things that I am rather certain of and have no problems facing. Rather, what I hope to demonstrate here is that what is required is grace and faith. It goes something like this:

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, TNIV)

Christians are not Christians because they have all the right answers to all of life’s imponderables or because we necessarily rise to meet every occasion with perfect faith and joy. Rather, we are Christians and we persevere in faith, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, because of grace. It is grace, God’s grace, that is sufficient even when everything else in life leaves quite perplexed because of its insufficiency.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Mike Yaconelli on Spirituality and Desperation

July 8, 2008 in Church in America
Tags: desperation, hunger, Jesus, Messy Spirituality, Mike Yaconelli, thirst

Friends,

I read this book a couple of years ago. I saw it on the shelf today while preparing lessons for my week of deaning junior high church camp next week. I saw one of those small green post-it flags attached to a page so I turned to it to see what had caught my eye two years ago. Here it is:

My father believes, as I do, that the church is the place where the incompetent, the unfinished, and even the unhealthy are welcome. I believe Jesus agrees.

Christianity is not for people who think religion is a pleasant distraction, a nice alternative, or a positive influence. Messy spirituality is a good term for the place where desperation meets Jesus. More often than not, in Jesus’ day, desperate people who tried to get to Jesus were surrounded by religious people who either ignored or rejected those who were seeking to have their hunger for God filled. Sadly, not much has changed over the years.

Desperate people don’t do well in churches. They don’t fit, and they don’t cooperate in the furthering of their starvation. ‘Church people’ often label ‘desperate people’ as strange and unbalanced. But when desperate people get a taste of God, they can’t stay away from him, no matter what everyone around them thinks.

Desperate is a strong word. That’s why I like it. People who are desperate are rude, frantic, and reckless. Desperate people are explosive, focused, and uncompromising in their desire to get what they want. Someone who is desperate will crash through the veil of niceness. The New Testament is filled with desperate people, people who barged into private dinners, screamed at Jesus until they had his attention, or destroyed the roof of someone’s house to get him. People who are desperate for spirituality very seldom worry about the mess they make on their way to be with Jesus.”–Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality, 33-34

You know what the problem is with us Christians? We become so certain of our faith in Christ, that we have forgotten what it means to be desperate, we forget how to be desperate. We are so confident in our Justification that we forget about Sanctification. We settle. And badly.

Perhaps it would behoove us to remember what it is like to be desperate, starving, dying of thirst. Perhaps if we remembered these, satisfied as we are, it would be much easier for us to understand those who still are in such dire straits. Perhaps we have forgotten how parched the land really is and why we came to Christ in the first place. Perhaps we need, quickly, to remember.

Soli Deo Gloria!