The Facebook Song

I love this video. It illustrates something that Ben and I have been discussing for a while now. We often get e-mails and various other messages from people concerning different happenings in our church or in their lives and many times people say things that we are both quite sure they wouldn’t say to us in person. We have called this “cyber-courage”. A friend of ours mentioned to us a phrase from back in his “drinking days” called “liquid courage”. The sense is that if a man gets enough alcohol in him, he’ll do things he would never dream of doing while sober. The same is true of e-mail and facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. They provide a forum for people to speak their minds and never be held accountable. They don’t have to look at people, hear their voice or see their expressions, and there is always the joy of saying, “Well, if you thought I meant that in my post, that wasn’t what I intended. Ah, yes, the warm blanket of plausible deniability. You can read anything into an e-mail or instant message or facebook post when the author only intended good things when writing!

Now, you could say that I am engaging in the very thing I am being critical of, and maybe so. Maybe we need to ditch the idea of a blog at our church lest we be tempted to say things that we can’t be held accountable for. We’ll see. And if you were offended by this posting…I didn’t mean it. Really.

No one should need to be convinced that Americans worship famous people. To be famous means “to be widely known and honored.” While the world has been weeping over the death of Michael Jackson, the earth beneath our feet and the sky above our heads has been weeping for glory to be given to their maker.

Psalm 19:1 (ESV)  
    The heavens declare the glory of God,
        and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

With a very loud voice, the beauty of the created order calls us to worship God and we worship the created order instead (Romans 1:25). The sadness of this whole Michael Jackson ordeal is the evidence it gives for the futility of idol worship. In crude reality, no matter how devoted we are to men, they die. They leave us wanting. They remind us that any pursuit after the glory of men is a futile one. It is futile because men cannot hold something reserved for God. Men are not meant to be worshipped. God is.

Isaiah 42:8 (ESV) 
    I am the Lord; that is my name;
        my glory I give to no other,
        nor my praise to carved idols.

Family Room= Theology Class

For the next seven weeks, we will be studying the biblical pattern of the family. God has a very specific plan for men, women and children in Scripture and he calls us to obedience and ultimately to joy as we discover his plans are far better than ours.

It is clear by now that we aren’t a flashy dashy, new and improved, marketing savvy kind of church. So you might be wondering why we would go the way of the topical series instead of the typical, systematic, verse by verse style by which we normally proclaim the Scriptures. The answer is simple and has two parts: First, we wanted to focus on the importance of families because of the year of doctrine. If our focus this year truly is doctrinal clarity and depth, the family should be the first place where that doctrinal clarity is established. As go the family rooms of the membership, so goes the church itself. The church is not an institution, meant to “fix” everything. The church is indeed a hospital where we all come to find the teaching, reproof, correction and training of Scripture and the fellowship of God’s people to equip, encourage and edify our souls, but it is not a place for parents to drop their kids off and hope they “get better”, or a place where teenagers can go so the youth pastor can make up for 17 years of bad parenting. The church is a place of training where families can be equipped to be what God intended them to be: the primary gospel-teaching, doctrine learning, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, sin killing, holiness practicing center of the Christian life.

Secondly, every “topical” message will be an exegetical message. We will not toss our commitment to sound hermeneutics in order to have a “cool series.” In upcoming posts I will be addressing the issue of churchy coolness as well as McChurch, or the seemingly ever-present desire for the church to have just the right menu lest the customers bolt. Buckle up.

When my wife and I were first married, I decided to cook for her one evening. I made a garlic stir-fry that she said was very good, but when we cooked it again later, she said it wasn’t nearly as potent in terms of the garlic flavor. I had misread the recipe and put 2 tablespoons of garlic salt in the dish rather than 2 teaspoons. While the dish wasn’t necessarily bad, the difference between the intended amount and actual amount of one ingredient dramatically altered the dish. Ingredients matter.

I do see a parallel in the theology of Christianity, however. We who think precision in matters of food is important might look at our understanding of the gospel or of theology in general and think that precision doesn’t matter. As long as you love Jesus sincerely, you don’t need to know all that nerdy theology stuff. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores the precision with which Jesus himself spoke. After all, the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 showed considerable interest in Jesus and had even kept the commandments! What a great guy! Churches today would put that guy in leadership immediately. When Jesus told him that he must sell everything he had in order to follow him, the man went away sad, because he had lots of stuff (19:22).  It was the precise words of Christ that caused the rich young ruler to leave, but it was the same precise command, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men” that caused Peter, James and John to drop their nets on the beach to follow Jesus. We must not be afraid to be clear. We don’t want to get the gospel wrong in an effort to make people like it.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot about the steroid controversy in baseball and I can’t help but equate that to the Christian steroid controversy. My wife and I went into a local Christian bookstore last night and found many examples of Christian steroids. For example, there was a book on understanding and applying every book in the Bible. “All 66 books explained and applied!” That particular volume was about 25 pages long. My favorite example was that of the charismatic section, which should read “how to be devoured by wolves”. That section was packed with books on how to have your best life now, while a book of Jonathan Edward’s sermons was on the “last chance clearance” table. Sure, pick up the book written by the guy with a golden coffee table and a $30,000 toilet, but the book by the greatest American theologian in history has to be on the last chance table. This is why I say Christian steroids are far more dangerous than those used in baseball. Just like baseball players want a quick fix to get huge so they can hit the ball out of the park, so too Christians want to buy the latest merchandising campaign that will get them to spiritual maturity in 40 days or less (or your money back!). How do I know that this is how Christians operate? Simple. It sells. Jonathan Edwards is marked down, Joel Osteen flies off the shelf. Steroids, not just for baseball anymore.

” …as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:20-21

How does someone get to the place where they can actually believe the statement, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain?” If the life of the apostle Paul is any indication, one arrives at such a place of reckless abandonment after encountering the living Christ. Paul calls himself a slave of Christ in Philippians 1:1, meaning that he saw himself as sought, bought and owned by Christ. He surrendered his own agenda, will and glory to the will and glory of the Messiah.

If asked, I think most Christians would say they want to be able to say with Paul, “to live is Christ”, but the reality of a total surrender of our agenda isn’t all that attractive, so we have created a false gospel that redefines Jesus, church and salvation. Jesus, a hoop we jump through to get to something else. Jesus is a name we close our prayers with, a code-word that gets us into heaven when we die so we can go straight to the mansions and golden streets. Church is a place we go in an attempt to impress God with our devotion, as if our coming to church while other people in our neighborhood mow their lawns makes God proud of our sacrifice. Salvation is a prayer we pray, an aisle we walk, a vaccination against hell, pain and suffering that must never be doubted because we prayed a prayer in VBS when we were six.

Into this false understanding of the gospel and salvation steps the apostle Paul, telling us that Christ is not just a part of our lives that we can “plug into” when we wish, but that living itself IS Christ. As the message rings through the air, we understand and we might even agree, but the idea that we should do something about it is unacceptable. After all, that would require us to get up. No wonder the culture isn’t impressed with Christianity. Christians aren’t impressed with it either.

You can learn a great deal about life from the honesty of a toddler.  Abraham just turned two this Christmas and he really enjoyed opening presents.  He would begin ripping into them and tearing every last piece of paper off the box.  There was one present, however, that revealed a great deal to me about the human heart.  Abraham tore all the paper off the box, he threw off the lid, and it was clothes.  He quickly scrambled to find the lid, placed it back on the box, and piled the paper on top of the box, ending it all by saying “No.”  Abraham wanted gifts so long as they were fun, but the moment it became something that was essential to everyday life he was no longer interested.  This glimpse into a little boys heart illustrated for me the profound reality in most churches and at times in my own life.  We get so excited about the gift of the gospel provided in saving us from sin and securing a place for us in heaven, however, when it comes to the hope it provides for a changed life on earth, we are less excited.  We get excited when we read passages like Romans 6:5, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”(ESV) However, when we read passages like 6:12, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”(ESV),  we tend to cringe.  We often love to hold onto our sin and our idols in this present life.  When we do this we are stuffing the gospel back in a box, putting the lid on, and throwing the paper on top,  saying, “No thanks God.”  There is no partial gospel.  You can not take it a piece at a time. You must embrace the gift of God as a whole.  It is the whole gospel or no gospel.  We must accept the whole gospel of God and yes, be forgiven of sins, and yes, have a new home prepared in heaven, but also have a newness of life on this earth.  Let it be said of us as it was of the Roman church, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,  and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.(Romans 6:17-18 ESV)”

The Body of Christ:

Pessimism, Repentance, and Gratitude

By: Benjamin Leonard

I must confess I have in the past been quite pessimistic about people, especially church people.  I have to constantly fight the desire to think less of people than I should and rarely give the benefit of the doubt.  Jeremy has told me how great of a church Heartland has been and how well they have cared for him and his family.  I have to say I was a little cautious about this.  I indeed wanted to believe everything he had to say, but I was still very cautious.  As I was reading this morning the author began to discuss 1 Corinthians 13:7, “Love believes all things.”  The author writes, ‘“To believe all things” means we are to believe the best about others.”  It was at this point that I realized I was in the wrong.  Church your love for me and my family has refreshed for us a picture of the love found in the body of Christ.  Your love for us has not been an empty gesture.  Your love for us has been selfless and sacrificial.  Many of you I do not even know your names yet you have loved on us more than we could have ever fathomed. We would like to express our humble gratitude to you the church for all that you have done for us.  You made the moving in quick.  You solved problems with our apartment without us even asking.  You have helped my wife with the children while she tries to unpack.  You have showered us with food. You have spent your evenings fixing our dryer.  You have prayed for me and my wreck.  You have done more than I could have ever asked for or thought about.  But most of all thank you for showing us once again what the body of Christ is supposed to look like in a real way. 

Sincerely,

Benjamin Leonard and Family

In keeping with the “all you need is lots more stuff” theme, I saw a commercial today for a television that was the newest, clearest, thinnest thing on the market. I have to admit, the thing looked really cool. The problem I had was at the end of the ad when the tag line appeared. “Change your T.V., change your life. I thought, “Really? That’s all it takes?” There are people so devoid of purpose that a flat screen image projector mounted on their wall will change their life? How boring is that? Where is the church in this? Why aren’t we answering the guy who thinks a T.V. is a life-changing thing with the gospel reality that things aren’t life-changing. Things aren’t eternal. Things burn. Things rust. Thieves break in and steal things. Children wipe greasy fingerprints on life-changing flat-screens every day and if we find ourselves talking about non-eternal, material possessions in terms of how they change our lives, we treasure the wrong things. This Christmas, run from this nonsense to the true treasure (Matthew 6:19-21).

So I’m watching Veggie Tales with my daughter yesterday and providentially she chose Madame Blueberry which talks about greed. The line in the video that stood out to me was the line, “Happiness waits at the Stuff Mart, all you need is lots more stuff.” This became even more glaring when I got my paper this morning and the ads were so thick I could barely get the paper out of that little plastic sleeve. With each ad, it was easier and easier to hear the song, “…all you need is lots more stuff.” It is difficult to hear anything else this time of year but the siren song of marketing and media promising happiness and joy, but delivering nothing. Our lives should be centered on something greater than this, right?

“And he said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’” Luke 12:15