Crave Something More

Imagine yourself in a room.  The door behind you shut firmly, and you find yourself looking around at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, wondering how you ended up here.  The color of the walls, the coldness of the floor, the smell of old furniture, and the taste of neglect fill your senses with a twist of comfort and anxiety.

At the far side of the room, you see a door, obscured mostly by darkness.  The doorknob is partially lit, inviting you to see what lies beyond but cautioning you all the same.  The room is quiet, strangely quiet, so that your thoughts are almost audible.  You suspect you know what may be beyond the next door, but you’re not quite sure, and you don’t know if you want to find out.  And you’re not sure you want to give up yet as you’ve come this far.

So the question lies before you:  should you stay, or should you go back, or should you go on?

I find myself in this room all the time. This place is the farthest I’m willing to go with a hard question.  Circumstances in life lead to thoughts, and thoughts lead to rooms with doors.  Each door opens the implications of the next thought into another room, with perhaps another door, and there’s a point that feels too far, that to go any farther means embracing something about God, or myself, that I fear to embrace.

Let me give you an example.  Ephesians 1:4 tells us:  “He chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.”  So when we think about God’s sovereignty in election, we find ourselves in a large antechamber with several doors.  One well-worn door may be labeled “God Chose Us By His Foreknowledge of Our Decisive Will.  Another farther down the wall may say “God Chose Us By His Sovereign Will.”

We might walk to the first door, reach out our hand to feel the grain of the wood, pausing to consider what may lie just beyond.  We might then walk to the second door and grasp the knob.  Closing our eyes, we open the door and enter the next room.

This room is smaller, with a slightly different hue and smell.  We see two more doors, one to our right and a second on the opposite wall.  These doors look smaller, but heavier, and they also look old.  We turn, realizing we can go back into the antechamber whenever we please.  So we walk forward and inspect the names chiseled deep within each door.

One says, “God’s Will Is Unaffected By Man,” and we pause to consider what that might mean.  Do we live within a deterministic reality?  Are we simply marionettes, carrying out a temporal play at the flick and twist of a divine puppet master?  We move to the other wall, coming close to a door that says, “God’s Will Is Affected By Man,” and we wonder at what this might mean?  Do our actions, or our prayers, affect the carrying out of God’s will in a dynamic way?  Is this interaction truly real and foreknown by God, or is it simply foreknown in the sense that it’s actually not dynamic?

We might go back to the first door, believing that God’s sovereignty must mean His will is not affected by man.  So we grip the door and pull it open, passing through the frame into the next room.  We find a chair, so we sit and consider the moment.  If God’s will is unaffected by man, then what good are our prayers?  Is James right:  do the prayers of the righteous have great power?  Or are our prayers means of God accomplishing His own will through us, for our sake?  And if so, are they truly effective, or are they only pretense?

This might be a room in which we sit for a while.  And maybe we don’t get up to look at the inscriptions on the doors on the far end of the wall.  Perhaps we go back out the way we came, trying another set of doors, or ultimately ending up back at the antechamber, where we’re not necessarily more content but at least we’re comfortable.

We are always in one of these rooms, or we’re either in the process of sitting, or going back, or considering the next door, or grasping the knob, or walking through to the next room.  Wherever we find ourselves, there are some observations we can make that are worth considering—and carrying with us as we go about our thinking.

1. God sees the start and end of this long line of rooms.  He made the doors.  He grants us grace to turn the knob.  And He meets us in each moment as we wait, and turn back, and walk forward.
2. Intellectually understanding the line of rooms is different than actually walking through them with heart in tow.
3. Some rooms exist in order to be explored and then vacated.
4. Many others have been through these doors and in these rooms; we do well to listen to their stories.
5. The doors are worth entering.  Jonathan Edwards, in his 11^th resolution, determined to try these kinds of doors so long as his legs had strength:  “Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don’t hinder.”
6. We walk in vain when we don’t walk with the Spirit through these rooms.
7. Finding our way to the last room may join us with the apostle Paul, exclaiming, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

May God grant us the grace to explore, and pause to reflect, and go back, and try other doors, and strive to enter the place where we rest in inscrutability of His glorious ways.

Question:  What door are you uneasy about opening?

I watched the movie Fireproof last night for the first time.  I know I’m coming late to the party, and as I understand, the movie has its fair share of critics who say Christian art often doesn’t compare in quality to its secular counterpart.  And the movie has its fair share of proponents who say that movies like this stand to redeem art from our evil culture.

Whoever is right is less important to me right now; I’m simply glad the team that made this movie did so.  I found parts of it to be compelling, other parts to be cheesy, and other parts to be a myopic index of standard hot topics for many modern Evangelicals.

But I loved the movie—and here’s why:  the story reminded me, in tear-filled fashion, that Jesus changes lives.  He shines brightly into darkness.  He renders the impossible possible by the power of His Word and His love.  He breaks people, and in doing so, makes them whole.

He heals marriages.
He restores broken relationships.
He releases addicts.
He melts hardened hearts.
He humbles the proud.
He brings purpose to the lost.
He opens the eyes of the blind.

I find it difficult to remember all of this sometimes.  I find it far easier to “move on” from this sort of thing to thinking on weightier theological issues.  I look at our being conformed into Christ-likeness as a forward-looking process, foregoing an awareness of where I have come from, and how Jesus first changed me.

Fireproof reminds each of us of our first love, Jesus, and it awakens within us a sense of gratitude and joy in being changed people.  This is the reminder for which I am grateful.

Having said all this, I don’t know that being changed people is the foundation of our faith.  I’m not even sure it’s end of our relationship with Him—it’s more likely a means towards the end of glorifying Him with all of our beings.

But being changed, and the One who continues to change us, is good to remember, and remember often.

Question:  Have you seen Fireproof, and if so, what were your thoughts?

Ever feel spiritually dry? Bone dry?  Scorching hot desert heat dry?  I’m not sure I care much about my faith dry?  If you’re a writer, you won’t feel like writing.  If you’re a singer, you won’t feel like singing.  The joy isn’t there.  Neither is the fruit.

I’ve been a Christian long enough to know there are peaks and valleys, days in green pasture and days in the desert.  I also know the automatic solution to being in the desert isn’t always more prayer and more Scripture.  Drawing near to God comes with a promise in Scripture–that God will draw near to us.  But ours is not a push-button faith.

Even so, during these times of dryness, we have a life-giving Savior who invites us in, saying:

Abide in me.

Remain in me.

Keep believing in me.

Keep trusting me.

Keep treasuring me.

So we press on in the desert, thirsty for water that leads to life, knowing that He is close even as He seems far, that this is a season like other that will pass, and that He is worth the longest journey across the largest desert.

Question:  When have you been in a spiritual desert?

I keep having these thoughts that life seems so terribly short.  They come most frequently first thing in the morning, and they are lightning bolt type thoughts—bright, powerful, elusive, and momentary.  I’ve been having these thoughts for several months now, and I realize I don’t yet know how to full put these thoughts into words.  I find them like a dream—vivid in memory and emotion, but hard to articulate clearly.

There’s some connection between these thoughts and my growing realization that this thing we call the Christian faith—a belief system and a way of life for many disciples of Jesus—is actually true.  I know that probably sounds silly, and you may feel that of course it’s true.  But I can’t help but wonder at the knee-bending, breath-taking thought that we have this one life, where we’ll work and live and move and marry and have kids and serve God.  And then life will end, and eternity will begin, and it will never stop.

I’ve felt this way before, and it drove me to a sense of urgency about living out my faith in a radical way.  But living out my faith in a radical way drove wedges in my relationships with others and with God because I willed myself to bear fruit rather than abiding in the Vine who produces fruit that lasts through me.

This time around, I know enough to not fall into the same trap, but I’m likely falling into some new trap I can’t even see.  I’m less anxious now, and less worried about making my mark on the world, even for God’s sake, and I’m more attuned to small joys—all the while becoming more and more aware of my own impermanence.  I suspect there’s a plateau or peak beyond this valley, one where I’ll come to depend on and commune with God in faith in a more tangible way.  But I’m also aware that I’m missing something right now—I just don’t know what.

James reminds us that life is a vapor, and we do well to remember his lesson.  And Jesus reminds us to abide and remain in Him, and we do well to remember His lesson too.  These are lessons the dead and the Living can teach us, and lessons our elders can share with us, because I suspect they have walked into and out of these kinds of valleys before.  That’s why it’s good to read old books, and it’s good to hang out with old people, neither of which I do often enough.

But ultimately, these are lessons my God will teach me if I continue coming to Him in faith.  Perhaps these thoughts are markings of a humbling process, a promise of the gospel, that dying to self will actually lighten my burden, because the yoke of my Master and Friend is easy and light.  May God grant each of us the grace and wisdom to know how to yield to Him in this way.

Question:  Do you have the sense that life is a vapor?  If so, how do you live out of that reality?  If not, how can you embrace this truth?

If you are a Major League pitcher, you dream about pitching in the World Series, winning the Cy Young, or pitching a perfect game.  That’s the pinnacle of your career.  That’s your ticket to the history books; perhaps even to the Hall of Fame.

If you follow baseball at all, or if you witnessed Detroit radio host Paul Edwards’ near-heart attack on Twitter on Wednesday night, you now know the names Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga.  Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, threw a perfect game this week in front of a home crowd.  The only problem was that Joyce, a 22-year veteran umpire, blew a ninth inning, 2-out call at first base, robbing Galarraga of his place in the history books.

Galarraga reached his pinnacle and had the ground drop out beneath him.  How did he respond?  By shouting (a baseball pastime)?  By pouting (a pro athlete pastime)?  No, he simply smiled.  A smile that said:  “You sure about that?  OK, that’s OK.”

We all have these pinnacles.  Writers may long to be on the New York Times Bestseller’s List.  Pastors may long to build a megachurch or make the national conference circuit.  Businessmen or businesswomen may long for the C-level position.   Bloggers may long for that one web-changing, viral post.  We ply our trades, hoping for the big break that may or may not come, believing that our lives will count for something more if our break does happen.

These pinnacles aren’t good or evil in and of themselves.  But the longing is what proves dangerous.  The longing is the pathway to many snares that keep us from keeping God at the center of our lives.

Through this weekend, you’ll hear media members use words like “grace” to describe Galarraga’s response to a bum deal.  And he was gracious in his reaction; he went back to the mound and got the next batter out, headed to the locker room without a complaint, and acknowledged to reporters that people make mistakes sometimes.

We could argue whether or not this is actually grace.  But grace isn’t what struck me in this instance.  The picture I’ll remember from that night in Detroit is a look on a man’s face that said the pinnacle was a mirage.

I don’t know Galarraga or his motivations, so I won’t put words in his mouth or ideas in his head.  But I will take the steadfastness of his countenance and hold it up as an emblem of contentment in the midst of great disappointment, and say this is an image we should cultivate in our spirits.  This kind of contentment believes that life is a vapor, that we are to be anxious about nothing because our Father owns everything, and that our God is sovereign over the levity of abundance and the thickness of grief in our lives.

What happens when the transmission falls out of our car on the highway and our checking account is floating just north of zero?  What happens when we don’t get the promotion we thought we needed or the job we thought we deserved?  What happens when our dreams for our lives don’t actually come true?

Do we shout at God in prayer? Do we spiritually pout in our own subtle ways?  Do we ponder what could have been, or what may be, rather than living out of the reality of the gospel in the midst of our daily lives?

May we all lose our perfect games and find that they were a mirage in the first place.  May we look at the greatest success we can imagine on earth and count it loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus.  And may we lay our greatest hopes and dreams at the feet of the cross, gazing upon the steadfast countenance of our risen Savior, and join the psalmist in saying, “Whom have I in heaven but you?  There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25).  It is then we lose our perfect game and gain our greatest treasure.

Question:  What is your own version of the perfect game in your life?

My friend Ed Cyzewski recently wrote a blog series on Writing As a Ministry, and he asked me if I would share a few thoughts on this well, which I’m more than happy to oblige.  As a reader, you may also be a writer, or you may be a mom, or a pastor, or in business, or a carpenter, or a student, or any number of occupations.  But I invite you to consider why you do what you do and whether you consider what you do as a ministry or not.

I would love to say that I write books and this blog purely as a ministry.  I would love to say that because I desire for this to be my heart’s deepest desire.  What I can honestly say is that I write in order to:

• Be affirmed
• Express a gift
• Force myself to think more deeply about daily life
• Prove I have something worth saying, or prove I am valuable because of what I do
• Attempt to know more of God
• Share ways in which the gospel touches our daily lives
• Satisfy my ego
• Proclaim Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings
• Feel important or impactful

You will notice a mix of pride-filled motives and grace-filled motives in this list.  My confession to God is that I am not ready to fully submit my writing to Him and His purposes alone, and my prayer is that He will help me remove my own selfish motives and replace them with His motives instead.

With that being said, writing (or _____) as a ministry is a worthy pursuit.  We probably shouldn’t go much further in this before understanding what the Scriptures have to say about ministry in general.  What follow are a few examples from God’s word:

• The apostles viewed their primary ministry as ministers of the word (Acts 6:4)
• Paul considers us as ambassadors for Christ, or ministers with a message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18, 20)
• God gave gifts to His people in order to equip them for the work of ministry, for building up His church (Ephesians 4:11-12)
• Paul assumed Timothy had a ministry which needed to be “fulfilled” (2 Timothy 4:5)
• Jesus obtained a ministry of His own which he appeared once for all at the end of the ages as a sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 8:6, 9:26)

So what can we say about ministry, and how does this impact our own ministries in turn?

1. Ministry is others-oriented.  The apostles ministered the word to others, the saints are equipped for ministry to others, and Christ’s ministry saves sinners.  Our ministry must continually be self-denying and others-focused.
2. Ministry comes with a gift.  God is the giver of gifts to His people in order that they may use them to build up His church.  Finding our ministry means discovering and using these gifts in order to build up the body in love and grow in maturity in Christ.
3. Ministry is a call.  Timothy had a ministry which he needed to fulfill.  God had prepared good works for Timothy to walk in, and He has done the same for us as well.  Being an effective minister means asking God to lead us into these good works.
4. Ministry requires prioritization. We may be able to minister in many ways, but we should follow the example of the apostles and consider before God where our gifts may bear the most fruit.
5. Ministry is sacrificial.  Ministry means giving, and giving means sacrificing.  Jesus gave of Himself to obtain His ministry of mediation, and we must give of ourselves in order to obtain the fruit of our own ministries.  We don’t minister to gain; we minister to give.
6. Ministry exists to glorify God. Jesus’ ministry on the earth, on the cross, and in the Father’s presence exists in order to bring glory to Himself and to the Father (John 17:1-5).  As all things exist for Him (Colossians 1:16), and since we are to do all things to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), let us embrace the sacrificial, others-oriented ministries of our gifts in order to magnify the glory of our God.

Question:  How do you think about your own ministry?

I love books.  Books allow us to enter the hearts and minds of others with different experiences in different times and think our own thoughts through theirs.  Sometimes we find words that we’ve felt but could not describe; other times we’re faced with thoughts we’ve never thought before.

I’ve been reading The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink (1886-1952), and the book is giving me a lot to think about.  Pink speaks with the royal, editorial “we,” which is always a good time.  But he is also diving deep into the nature of God as revealed within the Bible and painting a portrait of the way man respond to this sort of revelation.

Here’s one section I’ve been wrestling with:

“What is the human Will?  Is it a self-determining agent, or is it, in turn, determined by something else?  Is it sovereign or servant?  Is the will superior to every other faculty of our being so that it governs them, or is it moved by their impulses and subject to their pleasure?  Does the will rule the mind, or the mind control the will?  Is the will free to do as it pleases, or is it under the necessity of rending obedience to something outside of itself.”

He goes on to say:

“The will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action…In every act of will, there is preference—the desiring of one thing rather than another…To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between alternatives.  But there is something which influences the choice; something which determines the decision.”

Ultimately, Pink says it is the heart which is at the core of humans and that the heart is inclined towards good or evil.  This inclination, or tendency, drives the impulse which guides the will in choosing what it chooses.  He builds on the notion that the will is bound, either by sin, or by righteousness.

So what do you think about all this?  And should we care?

I recently watched this video from a generation past about prejudice.  Teacher Jane Elliot used a simple experiment with the students in her classroom to teach them about the nature and consequence of bias, and the results of her experiment were shocking in one sense and not surprising in another.  You will watch this video and be stunned by the speed with which the prejudice of the human heart is revealed.

This is a video worth watching for a number of reasons:

1. It makes its point in parable, and powerfully so, which delivers the message straight to the heart.
2. It awakens hearts that are numb to bias in all its perilous forms.
3. It begs for a resolution (racial reconciliation) which points us to a greater reality (spiritual reconciliation)

I find it helpful to remember this video was shot during a different time in a different culture.  But I also know the prejudice we see released within these kids is the kind of prejudice that persists even to today.

Being part of the majority culture must certainly obscure my view of the continuing racial divide that exists in our country and around the world.  And racial prejudice is not the only kind of prejudice that plagues our people today.  We are a people of bias, and we seem to seek out any opportunity to create division where unity should exist.  We categorize others in our minds based on gender, denomination, theology, religion, race, intelligence, economic status, or national affinity.  Put simply, we are a divided people.

Our hearts may cry for unity across all of humanity—to see divides between color and creed and class to fall by the wayside and be replaced by a highway of harmony that cross all nations and all barriers.  And in one sense, we should seek for unity and pray for peace when we see them fall victim to the evils of prejudice.  But in another sense, we strive in vain when we try to build bridges that don’t acknowledge the very work of division God is bringing about in our world.

When Jesus says, “Do you think I have come to give peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division,” we find Him revealing a part of His core mission:  to redeem a people for Himself from out of every family, community, and nation.  God’s redemptive purposes are not confined to a nation, or a color, or anything we as humans can touch or see.  God’s redemptive purposes are predicated by His own counsel and the “secrets of men” (Romans 2:16)—namely, the condition of their hearts.

God means for unity to exist within His church at the cost of discord within the world.  But God’s kind of discord is not our kind of discord.  God does not judge men based on the color of their skin, but rather on the condition of their heart.

Since God does not judge men based on the color of their skin, neither should we.  Since God shows “no partiality” (Romans 2:11), neither should we.  When Paul says God shows no partiality, he reinforces what Moses wrote in Genesis 1:27 and what Luke wrote in Acts 17:26:  That all men, irrespective of ethnicity, are made in the image of God.  This should immediately put to rest any notion that the value of a human can be determined by something other than their humanity.

This is not to say distinctives are not necessary, or even good, particularly as we strive to preserve the purity of the gospel in a world that would cloud it with all kinds of debris.  We do not serve God well when we act as if truth should be comprised as a result of our own inclination towards sin.  But where we allow our distinctives to influence our view of the inherent worth of others, we go too far.

In all this, I’m reminded of a few important truths:

1. It is not ours to judge others, even as we judge righteously (see John 7:24).
2. Reconciliation begins with humility, and humility begins with submission to God.
3. God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
4. All things, including racial discord, racial harmony, spiritual division, and spiritual unity exist for Jesus to make manifest His glory.

So we should strive for racial reconciliation and denominational reconciliation and ethnic reconciliation where we see the division created by men and not God.  But these goals are penultimate, not ultimate.  What is ultimate is the glory God receives when we demonstrate the ultimate value and worth of Christ in how we love others irrespective of color or class or creed and when we carry forward His great gospel to every color, class, and creed.

Question:  What impact have you seen bias have in your own life?

This is a week which has loomed large each year since 1955, when Congress moved the filing deadline for tax returns to its current date.  April 15 holds a prominent place on our calendars, but this day is not always the highlight of our year.  The conscientious among us filed their taxes months ago and think nothing of this week.  But for the procrastinators in our midst, this week promises late nights, scores of Google searches, and more than a few “can you believe…” questions to our husbands and wives.

But “all things were created for [Jesus]…that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:16, 18).  This “everything” includes our money, and the IRS, and Tax Week, which means that even this week exists to make Jesus look glorious.

So here are seven reasons to love Tax Week, for His glory and our great joy:

1. We’re reminded to render to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and to God what belongs to God.  Proverbs 3:9 tells us to “honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce,” so paying our taxes reminds us we should be giving to God first.  But Jesus would have us consider a more important question—what belongs to God that we should render unto Him?  When we realize the answer is “everything,” we can then see that submitting a portion of our income to our government reminds us to submit all we have, and all we are, to our King.
2. We’re reminded that God places rules and authorities over us for our good.  Paul instructs us in this way:  “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God…therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.  For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God” (Romans 13:1, 5-6).  So when we pay taxes, we acknowledge God’s ultimate authority over all things.
3. We’re reminded that the government blesses generosity—but God blesses it more.  “Give, and it will be given to you.  Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).  The government doesn’t tax the money we give away, so we end up getting a return on our charity.  But God’s return, whether material or spiritual in nature, is far greater—packed tightly, running over, with liberal abundance, echoing His dispensation of grace to His beloved children.
4. We’re reminded that integrity pays dividends. God tells us that “wealth gained by fraud will dwindle” (Proverbs 13:11), and “whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household” (Proverbs 15:27).  Most of us have the opportunity to cheat on our taxes.  We may not be involved in a large, devious scheme; we may just find the chance to not report some income or overstate some deduction.  But what price will we place on our integrity?  The way that is right before God is the way that will bear the most fruit.
5. We’re reminded that money is the smallest of things.  Jesus tells us:  “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much…if then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” (Luke 16:10-11).  As disciples of Jesus, our desire is for the true riches of heaven, and we recognize two things about our money:  our money itself is temporal in nature, but our use of it has eternal consequences.
6. We’re reminded of where our treasure is.  We know Jesus’ words:  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).  But we may find ourselves forgetting this truth at tax time, when owing additional money can be cause for anxiousness and getting a refund can be cause for unhealthy celebration.  We do well to imitate Paul’s heart of contentment when he says:  “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound…I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13).  Whether facing the temptation to not trust God to provide in a time of need or to not depend on God in a time of abundance, Christ alone is our strength.
7. We’re reminded that Jesus loves tax collectors.  “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).  Let’s be honest—we’ve all thought at some point that the IRS is a group of heartless mercenaries bent on sapping the country dry of its money.  But Jesus called Matthew from his tax booth, and He went into the home of a notorious tax collector, Zacchaeus, bringing salvation with Him.  If Jesus loves tax collectors, we should as well.

So Tax Week is fruitful for remembering.  Instead of spending our week as reluctant tax-paying malcontents, let us embrace this time as an opportunity to demonstrate the sufficient worth and all-satisfying treasure that Jesus is to us, and in doing so, we will reflect back the glory of His preeminence over all things.

Good Friday and Easter combine to create an emotional roller coaster of faith packed into a single weekend. Reflection upon Good Friday can bring darkness, conviction, grief, introspection, gratitude, and worship. And reflection upon Easter can bring wonder, fear, faith, hope, exhilaration, trembling, and deep joy. These days are two sides of a single coin of faith, one rooted in belief in a God who holds power over sin and death, for our sake and His glory.

But the depths and heights of these emotions cannot be sustained over life’s journey; there are plains among the valleys and peaks. This is why we remember these things regularly in communion, preaching, and days of remembrance. So we may find ourselves wondering how we should continue in Christian living following a weekend of such magnitude.

But we don’t need to wonder for long when we have God’s word to guide us. As disciples of Jesus today, we can always look back to His first disciples as examples of what to do, and what not to do, in the weeks following Holy Week. Although we have the benefit of hindsight to know how the story ends, we can still find ourselves in their sandals in many ways. As we consider their example, we may find ourselves:

1. Worshipping Jesus.  “And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him” (Matthew 28:9).

Truly understanding and believing that Jesus rose from dead will lead to worship, for there is no one in heaven or on earth like Him.

2. Dealing with slander.  “[The elders] said, ‘Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep’’” (Matthew 28:13).

Easter may arouse worship among followers of Jesus, but it may also arouse ridicule from scoffers and skeptics. We are a strange people, orienting ourselves around a God-man who is said to have risen from the dead, and the folly of the cross creates disbelief in the power of the resurrection. Sometimes, even those closest to us may grieve our hearts as they mock the roots and object of our faith.

3. Doubting.  “So the other disciples told [Thomas], ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails…and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25).

Faith doesn’t erase all doubts; it erases our penalty for sin. We are not a perfect people when we first believe, and God will grow us into Christ-likeness in a thousand different ways. Those among us who are skeptics at heart may find ourselves reflecting on Holy Week and asking ourselves, “Do I really, actually, truly believe this story?” When we encounter these kinds of questions, it’s good to ask Jesus to meet us in our moments of doubt. After all, He did not scold Thomas; he came wounded, inviting him to believe.

4. Finding wonder in the word.  “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32).

The Scriptures are a limitless mine for amazement at the majesty of God in weaving a narrative across geography, people, time, and genre into a tapestry that reveals a detailed portrait of Jesus. Studying this word, meditating on it, memorizing it, hiding it in our hearts are gateways to wonder.

5. Receiving a commission from Jesus.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

“[Jesus] said to [Peter], “Feed my lambs…tend my sheep…feed my sheep…follow me” (John 21:15-17, 19).

The Great Commission is for the Church, and as members of that Church, it is for us. But we’re also part of one body, and each of us has a specific role to play, so our means for fulfilling the Great Commission may look different from one another. Being close to Jesus will bring us our own small commissions to do this or that and follow Him.

6. Going back to work.  “Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing…’ When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord…he threw himself into the sea [and swam to shore]” (John 21:3, 7).

There’s a kind of joy that comes from the brokenness of Good Friday and a kind of joy that comes from the hope-filled wonder of Easter. But then there is Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the next week, and the week after that. The routine of life soon reemerges to confront our time of reflection. But Jesus will show up in the midst of our daily routines, and we do well to throw ourselves into His presence as He reveals Himself to us.

So what do we do after Holy Week? We continue our mission of being and making disciples of Jesus, living in community with one another, confronting our fears and doubts with the power of the word, being firmly rooted in faith that is made possible by God’s work on the cross, in hope made possible by God’s work in the tomb, and in love that is expressed by daily obedience to the word of Christ. We honor the glory of Christ in celebrating His death on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday, but we also honor Him in our daily steps of obedience on Monday.

I love The Gospel Coalition, and here’s why:

“The Gospel Coalition is a group of (mostly) pastors who are deeply committed to the gospel…and want to think out of the framework of the good news of Christ—crucified, risen on our behalf, reconciling us to God, preparing us for eternity.” DA Carson

“We’ve got our eyes fixed on the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be central—it needs to drive everything that we do in ministry and in life.” Joshua Harris

“The gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed.” TGC Confessional Statement

“The gospel is not just a body of doctrinal content.  It’s a power—it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.  It’s not just about God’s power—it is God’s power.” Tim Keller

“I am gripped by any gathering of people who will give themselves to the preservation and the exaltation of the fullness of the gospel, because in the end, my soul gets satisfied with the greatness of God, and God gets all the glory that He should get by being the end for which [all things] exist.” John Piper

There is beauty and grace and strength and depth in these words.  I find deepening affections for God as I consider the human brokenness and Spirit-filled power in this global community which has oriented itself around the greatest news in human history:  the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In light of these affections, I was troubled by the question that recently came to mind:  Is it possible to overemphasize the gospel?

Here’s why I ask.  The way we think and talk are products of the people we read and talk with and listen to.  I didn’t grow up saying “authentic community,” “missional,” “there’s a tension here,” “the sufficiency of Christ,” “the glory of God,” or any of these phrases I find myself saying and writing now.  I have picked these up from pastors and writers and friends, who I assume picked them up from other pastors and writers and friends, and on and on until we find we are all beginning to share a new common language to express old ideas.

These kinds of phrases are useful in that they represent ideas we believe, and these ideas ultimately inform the ways in which we live.  That’s why the language we use is so crucial—if we hear and say something enough, we will often find our lives changed by the power of words.

One of the most common phrases I’ve been hearing recently from pastors all across the country is a variation on the term gospel.  Usage has taken on many forms:  “gospel-centered living,” “living out of the gospel,” “the centrality of the gospel,” “gospel-centered ministry,” and the like.  These phrases are a testament to the stirring of God in our churches and the impact of communities like The Gospel Coalition in which ideas that matter are shaped and shared.

There is clearly a movement underway—a movement towards gospel-centered ministry and gospel-centered living (see).  And this is a movement worth joining.  As John Piper says, “When the [gospel] is lost, the glory of Christ is lost.”  So the stakes of this movement have eternal consequences.

With movements comes movement—a shift from one perspective to another.  And because we are fallen, we have the tendency to shift too far at times.  This is the classic pendulum swing we see in religious movements and social movements alike.  We often find it easier to react against what we don’t believe rather than beginning with what we do, and the outcome is often intellectual and emotional polarization.  So I wonder if we’ve done the same thing with our usage of the term gospel.

This brings me back to my question:  Is it possible to overemphasize the gospel?  Or to ask it another way:  what dangers might exist in overusing the term?

To answer this question, it may be useful to look at God’s word, where we find that the gospel is…

…A promise of God (Romans 1:2)

… A command to be obeyed (1 Peter 4:17)

… Good news to be believed in (Mark 1:15)

…A message to be preached out of the power of the cross of Christ, not out of human wisdom (1 Cor 1:17)

…The revelation of God’s righteousness (Romans 1:17)

…The power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16)

…A seed that bears fruit (Colossians 1:6)

…A worthy cause for which to lose our life (Mark 8:35)

… A source of great blessing (1 Corinthians 9:23)

God has much to say about the gospel, His gospel, and it’s clear that this good news is filled with glory.  But we should note that what God has to say about His gospel is largely spoken of in terms of means.  The gospel is a promise of God in order to set His people apart.  It is a command of God in order to face judgment and be saved.  It is good news to believed in order to join God’s kingdom.

I recently heard a pastor speaking to the power of the gospel to touch all parts of our lives, not just the moment of our conversion, but he spoke of it in terms of an end and not a means.  He said things like, “We need to live out of the gospel,” “we need to trust in the gospel,” “we need to keep the gospel in front of us all the time,” and “the gospel heals us.”

I don’t mean to object over trivialities, because I know the intentions behind the words were meant to honor God, but this is where our language is vital.  The gospel is a means—not an end.  So the way we talk about the gospel and think about the gospel is paramount.  It amounts to whether we orient our lives towards the journey or the destination.

The destination is why The Gospel Coalition exists:  to generate a unified effort among all peoples—an effort that is zealous to honor Christ and multiply his disciples, joining in a true coalition for Jesus” (The Gospel for All of Life: Preamble).  And this must be many have joined this movement, to partner with people who are orienting their lives around a Person who is the destination we all seek.

So I conclude that we cannot overemphasize the gospel so long as we keep the Source, Substance, and End to the gospel in full view.  Pastors, we as your flocks need to hear you remind us continually that the gospel touches every part of our lives—that it is the firm foundation on which we walk in our journey of faith.  But more importantly, we need you to point us to the end of this road, to Jesus, for whom, and about whom, the gospel exists.

Six weeks ago, the earth broke under Haiti.  This past weekend, it broke again under Chile.  The Western Church had an awakening of sorts during the intervening time—perhaps not a deep, spiritual awakening, but surely one of compassion.  People who had just celebrated a Christmas and New Year in a time of relative comfort and prosperity were suddenly moved to give, go, pray, weep, and yearn  for understanding during a time without many answers.

Some of us may find ourselves with more questions after this second quake.  We may consider the first event to have simply been something that happens from time to time.  But we may look at the second and wonder what is really going on.  Is God truly sovereign?  Is He punishing nations?  Is He permitting tragedies for an ultimate good?

These questions should not cause us to withdraw—we should now give, go, pray, and weep for Chile as we continue to do for Haiti—but it should give us a broader sense of perspective.  There was a period of great mobilization after Haiti’s quake where hearts were torn and pockets opened and planes boarded and prayers lifted up.  And there was a sense of great urgency, that the needs were real and present.

But Haiti’s needs have not gone away, and Chile’s needs are now real and present.  So as we mobilize once more, we may find more of a sense of calm than before.  We may feel these new needs are urgent, but they are perhaps a different kind of urgent.  There may no longer be the great burst of excitement that comes when first setting foot on a new mission field; this may feel more like the toil of ministry.

The excitement is good, but the toil can be better.  The reason I say this is that new excitement in a life of faith is never static.  The enthusiasm or agitation that we feel deep within our spirits always moves somewhere else after a time.  And these soul-deep feelings tend to move within a framework of worldview.

We often start with a local worldview; our focus is primarily on ourselves and the world immediately around us.  We care most about our families, and our jobs, and our to-do lists; we rarely think of others on a broader scale, or even at all in many cases.

But then tragedy strikes, and our hearts are awakened from a state of slumber to a global worldview.  Those involved in the tragedy at hand are first and foremost on our minds, but we slowly begin to consider the billions in the world today, many of who are in great need.  Our hearts go out to them, as do our prayers and our money.  But over time, the initial burst of compassion tends to fall away and is replaced by one of two things:  either descent toward a local worldview once more, or an ascent to a universal one.

We descend to a local worldview because our burst of compassion often comes as a superficial reaction.  I say superficial not because the feelings are not genuine, but simply because they don’t last.  There’s no root.  We begin to feel as if there’s too much need, that we’re helpless to make any significant impact, and this leads us to a sense of despair.  When our roots go only to the shallow depth of our own hearts, our compassion will wither because we are ultimately trusting in ourselves.  But when these roots go into a heart that has been cultivated by the Spirit, the despair we feel is replaced by a dependence on God because we recognize we truly are helpless.  This is the path of ascent that comes from a universal worldview.

There’s nothing specific about a universal worldview that is inherently better in terms of the material world.  The universe is not geocentric, but God’s redemptive story is.  The stage of Earth has hosted the Star of this story, and the vastness of the heavens serve as the grand auditorium to make this stage all the more magnificent.  But a universal worldview accomplishes its objective, not because it is simply larger, but because it raises our thoughts beyond ourselves, and all of global humanity, to God Himself.  And when the eyes of our hearts and minds and spirits are open to God rather than focused on man, we are empowered to persist in compassion for the hurting and the lost.

In fact, this is the only way to sustain this kind of God-empowered compassion.  A universal worldview doesn’t leave us with our heads in the heavens, after all.  It brings us to the most local level of all—our own hearts—as we see our need to abide in Jesus, and that abiding is what empowers us to love both locally and globally.  This is why we pray more and trust more when we feel helpless, because we recognize our ongoing need for God.

So when we feel the sway of despair, or the toil of ministry, may God strengthen us to continue in love for the Church, the needy, and the lost.  May the sense of our own weakness not draw us back to focus on ourselves, but may it push us onward and upwards to the heart of God, where He will work in and through us in the most intimate way, empowering us to live and love, both locally and globally, for His glory and our joy.

Question:  What do you do when you begin feeling you are helpless to help the world’s tragedies?

One of my favorite pastimes is thinking of all the things I would like to change in other people.  I find it far less interesting, and far more intrusive, to think about changing myself.  Digging to find the rough spots in my soul is difficult; throwing stones at others is far easier.

I’ve developed quite a talent for this.  I can point out the flaws of people I’ve known for years.  I can pinpoint the failings of people I’ve just recently met.  And I can even sometimes imagine the imperfections in people I don’t even know.

It’s important to know I’m an equal-opportunity fault-identifier.  I can find fault in my boss, or my wife, or my pastor, or my friends, or my parents, or my brother, or my in-laws, or co-workers, or my neighbors, or even strangers who pass by with an odd look or a certain outfit.  And I’m not talking about superficial changes, like “I wish she would not wear that hat,” or “I wish he didn’t leave his water glass half-full every time.”  I’m talking about meaningful, truth-related, character issues.

Noticing the flaws in others is ultimately a fruitless activity, however, unless you also have the courage to say it to their face, or even better, the fortitude to say it behind their backs.  Fault-finding is like a good story—it’s far more powerful and enjoyable when shared with others.

Sarcasm aside, there’s deep, dark sin to be had in this kind of thinking.  We bury ourselves in miry pits of self-righteousness, all the while thinking we are sparkling clean.  Finding fault in others is a sure recipe for a judgmental spirit, blindness to our own sin, increased isolation from others, and callousness towards God.

The irony is that we do this sort of thing with the best of intentions.  The Pharisees meant well when they saw the specks in others’ eyes.  It’s simply that they missed the logs in their own—and not on purpose.  After all, if you actually knew you had a log in your own eye, you would certainly remove it.  So a judgmental spirit, spiritual blindness, isolation, and callousness are never the goals of people of our sort—they are just the results.

I’ve seen a logical progression for how we get into and out of this kind of thinking:

1. You don’t care.  People that don’t care deeply about truth, particularly God’s truth, aren’t going to be as concerned when they see truth-kinds of failings in others.  So before we commit our lives to Jesus, we aren’t always as concerned about seeing truth being upheld in the world
2. You do care, and you focus on individual others. This stage is where we begin caring about truth, and we naturally focus on others as a consequence of being human, so we begin to pick up on the moral failings of others.  As our self-centered view of the world plays out, we want others to change so they are oriented towards us in a manner that is more convenient for us.
3. You do care, and you focus on general others.  This is the stage where many of us spend most of our time.  We’ve learned through experience that individuals don’t like being told about what we’d like to change about them.  And we’ve found it’s safer to point out the failings in a general group of people than particular individuals.  Speaking in generalities also helps us feel as if we’re concerned about truth on a larger scale, which makes us feel that we have a more Godly, global perspective.
4. You do care, and you focus on yourself as you see yourself.  This is the beginning of the hard stages, which is why few of us spend much time here.  In this stage, we have given up on focusing on others, trusting that God is working in their hearts as well.  We give up in this way because we are slowly becoming overwhelmed by our sin.  It’s not that truth doesn’t matter to us anymore; it’s simply that we recognize that we’re not of much use to encouraging others when we’re so broken ourselves.
5. You do care, and you focus on yourself as God sees you.  This is perhaps the hardest stage of all.  In the prior stage, we found that we are disgusted with who we are, and we’re beginning to embrace the righteousness we have in Jesus.  We do go through the process of comparing ourselves, not against others, but against Jesus, and we find that although we fall woefully short, we’re still loved and accepted by Him, because of Him.  This is the hardest stage of all, because it is so unnatural at first, but it is the birth of true humility.
6. You do care, and you focus on God.  This is the stage of great wisdom because it’s the stage of greatest humility.  We embrace the realization that coming into the presence of God means forgetting about ourselves, not primarily because we’re wretched sinners, but because He is so much more glorious to behold.  Seeing God in this way leads to abiding in Jesus, and abiding in Jesus produces great fruit in our lives.  And producing great fruit in our lives often leads to change in others as well as they begin to behold the glories of God on their own.

Ultimately, changing other people is part of our Great Commission. We are to baptize people into the faith as a sign of their new creation.  We are to disciple them and teach them so they will grow into Christ-likeness.  But we do so not out of own effort, but as a byproduct of a life spent treasuring Jesus above all other things and inviting, encouraging, and exhorting others to treasure Him as well.  May God grant us passage through these stages of life so that we might collectively behold His glory, and may He change us all through the process.

Question:  How often do you want to change others, and how do you typically go about it?

Let me start by saying I have no ecclesiastical authority to be giving pastors advice at all.  And God’s servants who minister to their local flocks should be esteemed for their service in a holy calling.  So I begin this post with the humility of a member of the universal body, under the authority of the elders of a local body, encouraging pastors in the global body in the care of their flocks.

I know some churches will have their normal Sunday evening services tonight, and that’s great.  And others will cancel their normal Sunday evening services tonight to provide space for their congregations to engage in their communities, and that’s great.  And some churches don’t have Sunday evening services at all, and that’s great.

Mark Driscoll will be preaching this evening and TIVOing the game.  CJ Mahaney will be watching the event and bringing an eternal perspective to a temporal game.  Thousands of other pastors whose names are known only to God and their congregations will be preaching tonight to smaller-than-normal gatherings because they love the word of God and know preaching to be one of its most powerful expressions.

But there will be some pastors who tell their congregations today that they need to choose between the Super Bowl and church, and I suppose a minority may do it with the right heart.  But there will be others who pose the choice as a false choice of faith—do you love Jesus more than football?

I call it a false choice because today is not the day to be asking this kind of question.  Every day is the day to be asking this kind of question.  Every sermon you preach is an opportunity to ask your flock this question—do you love Jesus, or do you love the world?

We as the church need this kind of question, this kind of preaching, every time we sit to hear you speak.  We need to be constantly reminded that “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake…will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul” (Mark 8:35-36).  We face this choice—Jesus or the world—every day as we rise, and work, and eat, and drink, and talk, and we need you to constantly point us to the superior value of Christ over anything the world can offer.

If you only ask this question on Super Bowl Sunday, you are likely going to be teaching your people to feel one of two things—either moral superiority, which will lead them straight down the path towards pride, or guilt, which will lead them straight down the path towards shame.  And pride and shame won’t encourage your people to value Jesus as their greatest treasure.

So maybe the best thing to do is to preach if you are scheduled to preach, and don’t preach if you’re not scheduled to preach.  And encourage your people to love God more than a game, even if they choose to watch the game.

And as the breathless victors lift up the Lombardi Trophy this evening, may we all be reminded of the victory gained on our behalf when the Son of God was lifted up and drew his final breath that beautiful evening centuries ago.