Tebow Madness

So Tebow mania is sweeping the nation and I cannot keep my mouth shut anymore.  And not because of Tebow himself.  I love the guy's faith, the boldness with which he proclaims it, and the way he plays the game.  In fact, this blog has nothing to do with what Tim Tebow has or has not done.  This blog is about the way everyone else has responded, especially evangelical Christians, and specifically with respect to the evangelical response to Tebow's stat line last week against Pittsburg.  

Unless you are living someplace the US postal service doesn't deliver, you have probably heard by now that Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards against the Steelers, 3 years to the day that he sported John 3:16 on his eye black in the national championship game.  He also averaged 31.6 yards per game.  Adam Schefter, an ESPN columnist, wrote an article dealing with these numbers and several other stats involving 316 in that game that is posted on the ESPN website.  And while I think that the attention that John 3:16 is getting from the world is cool, I am kinda flabbergasted by the downright superstitious response of many Christians.

Now don't get me wrong, I root for the Donkeys, did before Tebow played for them, will when he is done playing for them.  I will watch tomorrow's game and root for the Broncos and Tim Tebow.  But this is a game played by grown men in tights.  And I have heard and read many Christians proclaiming as loud as possible how they see God in the football stats.  Praise Jesus (seriously)!  But at the same time, many of them don't, and cannot, see God in their work, families, lives, suffering, illnesses, finances, relationships, etc.  In fact they question where God is.  Do you see the sad dichotomy here?  I could write for hours about the often times sad state of affairs that occurs when you mix faith with competitive sports in America.  I'm a coach, I've seen it first hand - although I have also seen sports used in amazingly positive ways as well.  But quite frankly, I think Satan is more concerned with the outcome of sporting events than Christ.  Nothing like victory to make you think you don't need God and nothing like defeat to make you blame him.  Christ doesn't care about what is going on in a game as much as he cares about what is going on in your heart.  Christ has given Tim Tebow an amazing platform to make much of Christ, and it appears as if Tebow is doing just that.  But Tim Tebow, and only Tim Tebow, will be the one to give an account for how he uses his platform to make much of Christ.  The rest of us will give an account for how we have used our lives to make much of Christ.  What I see and hear from many professing Christians appears to be them vicariously living their "faith" through someone else.  Get off the bench and into the game.  Make much of Christ and proclaim the goodness and power of God in the hard, dark parts of life and not just when a 24 year old in tights trying to keep a dead animal away from other grown men who are also wearing tights puts up 316 yards. 

Fighting the Good Fight

"I have fought the good fight" (2 Tim 4:7).  The imagery of fighting, straining, running the race and struggling are found throughout scripture. Many times, especially in the athletics, the verses containing these exhortations are bent and contorted in an attempt to motivate people to exert themselves in some worldly endeavor.  But what Paul is referring to here is so much bigger.  The Christian life is a fight, it is a war, not against governments or people groups, but against sin and the powers of darkness.  The more I live life the more I am convinced of, and see the truth in this.  But I think more often than not Christians don't see life as a fight, they see it as a vacation.  

I think there may be a couple of reasons for this, including poor teaching and theology and a basic worldview held by many that we are basically good people with a few imperfections rather than a worldview that holds to the truth that we are basically wicked people incapable of good apart from Christ.  But I think an even bigger factor in this is that we have lost the concept of total war and embraced an ideology based on limited engagement.  We want tactical, surgical hits on the things in our life that we don't like, and we expect them to just disappear and go away after a single battle.  The idea of prolonged, drawn out warfare in which all assets are brought to bear agains the enemy and the goal is the complete and utter annihilation of the enemy is not popular in a society that demands instant gratification and shies away from conflict.  Always being on guard gets tiring.  It gets monotonous at times.  It wears a person down.  Which is why the Christian is continually called upon to press into and depend totally on Christ and not their own power.  And we must emphasize that it is a day by day, minute by minute pressing into Christ, not a once and done deal.  It is not as if we call out to Christ and he comes and tactically nukes our issue and then we just go on living life without struggle no longer having to depend on Christ.  No, we continually press into Him and never let our guard down.  We wage war against sin (and I'm not referring to the Christian right's war against abortion and homosexuality, I am referring to the sin in every person ever born, the natural desire of men to chose themselves and the world over God).  The good fight is one that does not end in this lifetime.  It is long, it is hard, and it will exact a toll on whoever engages in it.  But Christ is sufficient and His power to fight never ending.  And at the end, when finally told by our Lord, we may lay down our sword and enter into His rest.

Thoughts on Christmas

So I thought I would share a little reflection on the Christmas season now that it has passed.  Every year I get struck by Christmas hymns.  I love them.  I love the theology behind them, I love the joy that they bring.  And every year it seems that a different hymn really sticks out in my mind.  This year, that hymn was "O Come O Come Emmanuel," especially the first verse.  The first verse goes like this:

O come, O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to they, O Israel.

This chorus is just packed with things that just exploded all over the inside of my brain this year.  You can feel the anguish of the first three lines and the joy of the last three.  The author is pleading for Emmanuel, which means God with us, to come.  But just appearing is not enough.  There is a keen awareness of the captive state of the souls of men and this is what I spent a lot of time contemplating of late.

How do you convey the idea of captivity to a people who has never known anything except freedom.  Freedom to do whatever they please.  Want to drive from coast to coast, no problem.  Want to start a business, go for it.  Want to buy something, if you have the money, no one is stopping you.  And that freedom has blinded us to the fact that we are not basically good people.  We are not morally upright.  We are rebels.  We are captives, and more often than not willing captives, to sin and evil.

This is why the saints of old groaned for the coming of the Messiah. This is why Simeon waited in the temple to see the consolation of Israel, the Lord's salvation.  This is why David, Isaiah, and the prophets yearned for more because they knew the Lord was sending his Holy Servant to make atonement, to set things right.  This is the implication of Christmas.  That God became flesh because we could not free ourselves.

what we dedicate our lives to

So today I was reading the Wall Street Journal and they had an almost full page piece on a man named Park Tae-joon.  I had never heard of this man, I bet none of you have either.  Mr. Park, 1927-2011, was a former South Korean army officer who literally built the South Korean steel industry from nothing after the Korean war.  In his final years he led a charitable organization near Seoul and told reporters he lived by a simple motto: "I dedicate my short life to my eternal country."

My first thought was, "How sad."  Here is a guy who thought a country was eternal and that was as high a thing he could devote his life too.  I thought, "Man, this guy died and the minute after his heart stopped beating he realized he wasted his life because his country isn't eternal."  But then I realized that Mr. Park's statement spoke volumes more about our lives than his.  I am at a coach's convention which, professionally, has been invaluable.  But as I look around the room, it is filled with people who will say, "I dedicate my short life to my eternal sport."  Sure, we can dress it up and say we are positively influencing lives (which is true in most cases) or that we are attempting to make life better for some kids (again true in most cases), but at the end of they day, it is still a game.  More than that, at least Mr. Park had the insight to realize that life is short.  Even if I live to be 80 years old, life is incredibly short.  Most of us, by that I mean most Americans, just don't get that.  We think we will live forever, at least we live our lives like we will live forever. 

So what is it that we would say we dedicate our short lives too?  Better yet, what would the way we live say we dedicate our short lives too?

the purpose of pain (and other garbage in life)

What is the purpose of pain and suffering?  Why is that throughout history God's primary means of sanctification is causing his church to go through various trials and tribulations and even crazier commanding those who follow him to rejoice that they are going through them (James 1:2; 1 Pet 1:6-7)? Quite simply there is nothing like trials and tribulations to loosen our grip on this world and cause us to desire Christ more than life itself.  It is easy, especially in America, to say that we love Christ and depend on Him for everything and yet at the same time of an insatiable love for the world.  This form of "Christianity" is found nowhere in scripture or history.  God in his mercy and love allows us to suffer in this world so that we do not cling tightly to it.  For there is nothing in this world that can satisfy that longing in our souls for peace than Jesus Christ.  

We all know it.  Every man and woman born on this earth knows deep down there is something broken.  We turn on the news and see it.  We see the headlines of war, rape, and exploitation and our soul cries out there is something wrong and we long for peace in our hearts.  Yet most men don't think they are part of the problem.  The problem lies outside of themselves.  So men turn to things outside of themselves to try to remedy the problem, and the world is ready and waiting with a whole host of things to try to fill the longing for peace with.  Money, sex, power, humanitarian assistance, philanthropy, you name it, men spend their lives seeking peace for their souls, never stopping to think that the reason they don't have peace is because they are at war with a holy, perfect God.  And yet God, in his infinite mercy and grace, reaches into creation and saves men.  He gives them new hearts, changing their desires from the things of this world to Himself.  Giving them hearts that long for him above everything else.  And then he makes their lives hard and often times down right miserable so that they will never again long for the things of this earth and rather yearn for the day when sin will be no more and they look on the face of Jesus Christ forever more.  And through the trials and pain, there is an unmistakeable, and unexplainable, joy.  Rooted deep in the nature and character of God.  And through this process they are changed more and more into the likeness of Christ.  It is not to say they never sin again, but the temptations of this earth, the desires of the flesh (materialism, sex, power, you name it) hold less and less appeal to them as they see the manifold beauty and perfection of Jesus Christ.

Is your heart's cry to see Jesus Christ because of who he is?  Does our heart cry out with our Christian brothers and sisters throughout history in a love for God for who he is in himself and not for what he does for us?  Do we rejoice in hardship because it loosens our grip on this world and fixes our eyes on Christ?  

Thoughts on Christmas

I think the words of John Owen are more apropos today than ever, but especially as we enter in the Christmas season where bigger and better is the name of the game and more bigger and better equals best.

"God showed his contempt for the world and the things of the world, chiefly by the the life, death and cross of Christ.  What is there in this world that can be loved or desired after the Son of God has lived in it?  He had nowhere to lay his head and ended his life cruelly on the cross.  If there had been anything of real value and worth to man's soul, Jesus would most certainly have enjoyed it.  But he never had more than his daily bread for which he taught us to pray (Matt 6:11).

"When Christ was crucified, the world revealed itself in its true colours for believers to see for all time.  Nor is the world any more beautiful now than it was when it crucified Christ.  the inference and conclusion which Paul drew from this he made clear: 'God forbid', he said, 'that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.' (Gal 6:14).  As if he said, 'Since I have believed, since I have fully realised the power and moral excellence of the cross of Christ, I have finished with the world and all that is in it.  The world is like a dead corpse to me and I have no love for it at all.'

"This is the great difference between the promises of the old covenant and the new.  Under the Old Testament, many promises only concerned the things of this world, the things of time and not of eternity, the good things of this world and this life.  But under the New Testament, the promises mostly concerned spiritual and eternal things.  God would not wean the church away from earthly promises until he had sufficiently shown their emptiness, worthlessness, and insufficiency to fully satisfy men's souls.  And this he did by the cross of Christ (2 Cor 4:16-18).

"Why, then, is there so much effort and hard work given to get more of the things of this world?  What is it all for?  Is it to provide for one's family?  Is it to get a name and reputation in the world?  I would never discourage any from working hard in their lawful callings.  But with many, providing for one's family is only an excuse to hide a shameful love for the things of the world." ~John Owen, Spiritual Mindedness

Why, actually I think the better question is how.  How do we as Christian's claim to love and follow Christ and then love so much of the world that literally ripped the flesh off of his bones and then nailed him naked to a tree and scoffed at him for 6 hours while he bled and died?  The Christmas season is the perfect example of this arrogant dichotomy.  Do we even realize or comprehend the level of arrogance and pride it takes to worship Christ by celebrating his birth by chasing after the things of this world?  May our prayer this Christmas be that Christ would have mercy on us by ripping out of our sinful hearts the love for this world and the things of this world that entangles us and that the things of this world would become strangely dim in the light of his glorious face.

Sermon

Got to preach at Westwoods church today... here is the link

More Thoughts on Thanks

As I dove into this study on thanks I was struck by the fact that the word “Thanks” has to a certain degree, begun to lose its meaning.  Not quite to the extent that words “love” and “believe” have been stripped of meaning, but stripped enough that when we use it, often times I’m not sure we are all on the same page.  For instance, and I use this example quite a bit with the word love, but I think it holds true here as well: I am thankful for pie.  I am also thankful for my wife.  If I mean the same thing in those phrases I am going to be looking for a place to sleep tonight that is not my bed.  And it is vital that we understand what is meant by the word because scripture is clear in how it uses the word.  For instance, let’s look at

Ø  At the end of 1 Thessalonians, Paul gives some final instructions to the reader including 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Ø  Twice in Ephesians 5 Paul mentions thankfulness

o   In Ephesians 5:1-4: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as I proper among saints.  Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

o   And in Ephesians 5:15-21: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in he name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Ø  And in Philippians 4:4-7: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.  The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Ø  And then there is the letter to the Colossians in which thanksgiving is referred to six times and implied at least one other time.  Here are a few of them,

o   Colossians 2:6-7: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

o   Colossians 3:15-17: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

o   Colossians 4:2: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

While we could camp and spend hours on each of these verses, I think something is glaringly obvious in these passages… An attitude of thanksgiving defines those who belong to Jesus Christ.  I mean look at the 1 Thessalonians passage, the will of God in Christ Jesus for you is that you rejoice always, pray continuously, and give thanks in all circumstances.  And Ephesians 5, throughout the entire chapter, Paul contrasts the attitudes and actions of the immoral, unregenerate people with those whose hearts have been changed and the characteristic which defines those who belong to Jesus Christ is thankfulness.  It would seem from scripture that an attitude of thanksgiving is almost synonymous with being a Christian.  Moreover, scripture defines ungodly men as those who are not thankful.  Look at Romans 1:18-22

Ø  “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling moral man and bird and animals and creeping things.”

So Paul tells us that men who know that God exists but do not honor him or give thanks to him become foolish in their thinking.  Paul also will go on to list lack of thanks as a characteristic of men in the last days in 2 Timothy 3:2.  Thus, thanks, thanksgiving and thankfulness in scripture mean so much more than just gratitude.  It is not just saying thanks for the food.  It is not just saying thank you to your spouse for putting up with garbage.  It is a way of life.  It is an attitude toward life that defines the Christian and dictates how you act and respond in all circumstances of life and it flows out of a heart that has been transformed by seeing the manifold beauty of Jesus Christ.

Now, when I say that thankfulness is more than just mere gratitude and is rather an attitude that defines the believer, we move into a realm that most of us are not comfortable in.  We aren’t comfortable there because most of us are linear people.  We want a checklist of things to do, of things and people to be thankful for, and then we want a list of how to actually express that gratitude.  It would be easy for me to get up here and say, “This week is thanksgiving.  Make sure you are full of gratitude this week.  You can do this by helping your wife do the dishes on Thanksgiving, or taking time before you gorge yourself to thank God for the food.  Or, you can take time after you gorge yourself on food to thank God for the money you are about to waste on Friday.”  And then we could walk out of here feeling good about the fact that this week, we are going to focus on thankfulness and be truly thankful for everything and everyone we have.  But that eventually fails us, doesn’t it?  And it isn’t the type of the thanks that is described in Scripture.

No, thankfulness in scripture, that attitude towards life that defines the follower of Christ, means so much more.  I think there are two things to look at that will help us understand this meaning.  First, and I only put this reason first because it will help us understand the nature of second better, is that the Greek word group that is translated as thank, thanksgiving, be thankful, etc. all share the same root which expresses the feeling of joy.  The word that is used in scripture that we translate as thanks literally means how we express joy.  And this concept shouldn’t be that earth shaking for most of you.  We express ourselves when we take joy in something.  Thanksgiving is a natural expression of the joy we take in people and things.  My example earlier of the pie isn’t too far off.  I am excited about Thursday night because I like pumpkin pie.  I will be expressing my thanks and gratitude to my mother on Thursday night because of the pumpkin pie she will have either made or bought (and mom if you are listening to this podcast later don’t forget the whipped cream). 

But remember, thankfulness is an attitude that defines our life, in all circumstances, good and bad, so our thanks, our joy that is expressed in all circumstances, must be rooted in something other than pie.  And this is the second reason we must look at.  In the New Testament, far and away Paul is the one who uses the words for thanks and thanksgiving the most.  The majority Paul’s uses of the word for thanks, thankfulness, and thanksgiving, are grounded in the nature and character of God, not in God’s stuff.  This is why we are in a realm that is so uncomfortable for us.  Because we are getting to the core of what it is we take our ultimate joy in.  It is easy to be grateful for things that we want.  It is easy to be grateful for people that make us happy.  But in order to give thanks in all circumstances, our thanks has to be rooted in something deeper than a mere gratitude for things we like.  Things and stuff will fail us, and if our thankfulness is not rooted in a deep and unshaking joy in Jesus Christ, then it is impossible to be truly thankful.

So the question then becomes, how do I know whether I am thankful or not?  How we know whether an attitude of thanks defines our lives can be answered in looking at what it is we take our maximum joy in.  Is our thanksgiving an overflow of the joy that we have in Jesus Christ or is it an idol in which we place supreme value on the gift, rather than the giver.

            Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “True gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself; whereas natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation.  The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other ground, on God’s own excellency.”  In other words, true thanksgiving that is pleasing to God is not first and foremost a delight in the things God gives, but rather is rooted in something that was there before God’s stuff, namely delight and joy in the manifold beauty and perfection of God’s character.

            For example, my wife would not be honored in the least if I thanked her often and profusely for all she does for me all the while having no deep and spontaneous regard for her as a person.  No amount of words could make her feel honored if I do not take joy in being around her.  So it is with God.  If our thanks is not founded in the manifold beauty and perfection of God’s character displayed in Jesus Christ, then all of our declarations of thanks are like the thanks of a wife to a husband for the money he gives her to go and have an affair with another man.  Our thanks and gratitude must be an echo of the joy we have in the excellency of God.

      And so our thanks must be an attitude toward life that defines the Christian and dictates how we act and respond in all circumstances of life and it flows out of a heart that has been transformed by seeing the beauty of Jesus Christ.  Indeed, thankfulness is not an optional trait for the Christian.  And yet I fear that we live in quite possibly the most thankless society in history, which should at a minimum cause us to stop and question how it is we consider ourselves the godliest society in history with a straight face.  There are so many things in this world that are vying for our attention that it is little wonder we are so thankless.    In a country where 83% of the citizens consider themselves Christians, we will spend 447.1 Billion dollars between this Friday and Christmas.  And the sad part is that most of that stuff we buy will be in the trash within 1 to 3 years if not sooner, only to be replaced by the next best thing.

Our insatiable love for stuff is destroying our capacity for God.  1 John 2:15-17 is pretty clear when it says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”  Our love for the world and the things in the world are destroying are ability to be thankful, it is destroying our ability for our thanks to be an echo of the joy we have in the excellency of God.

And the only conclusion I can reach when I see so many professing Christians have a deep and abiding love for the world is that we don’t really know who God is.  I fear that too often we do not consider God the ultimate good thing to have.  We do consider God to be the most beautiful thing in the universe.  Not when there are iPads and cars and houses and cameras and whatever else it is we want out there that we think will make us happy and content.  For if we had but a glimpse of the eternal goodness and beauty of Jesus Christ the things of this earth would become strangely dim, and our hearts would sing for in praise and thanksgiving, echoing the joy we have in the manifold beauty and perfection of Jesus Christ.

Thankfulness

So I have been studying the idea of thankfulness for a sermon that I am preaching this weekend at our church.  I have been struck by the fact that when we use the term thanks or thankfulness, we are always using it as a term that expresses gratitude or relief.  However, in the greek language, the word group used for thanks and thankfulness had at its core the meaning of expressing joy.  I think there is a profound difference.  Gratefulness is showing an appreciation for something with a ready expectation of trying to return the favor.  Joy, on the other hand, is a "deep, durable delight in God that ruins you for anything else" (definition given by Sam Storms at the 2010 Desiring God Conference).  

When we view thankfulness as just merely being grateful, it inevitably leads to our thinking we can, and often trying to, repay God.  This belittles His character and grace.  Thankfulness is an expression of the joy that we have in Jesus Christ.  It is an attitude of life, a lifestyle, not merely an action we undertake before as we say grace over a meal. 

I love Jesus but....

So our church has been doing a sermon series on how we mind the gap between what we say we believe and how we actually live.  We have addressed several topics stemming from the statement, "I love God, but...".  It has gotten me thinking how often we do this without realizing it.  I love Jesus, but I have to make a living.  I love Jesus, but I have a family to support.  I love Jesus, but he doesn't realize why I can't do such and such.  I love Jesus, but look at all the good things the world has to offer.  And the reality is, none of the "but" statements above involve something that is inherently evil.  It isn't like we are talking about "I love Jesus but I have an urge to kill someone."  No, these are things that are basic to life and are morally neutral if not morally good.  But we turn them evil when we use them to qualify our love for and devotion to Christ.  This is why John is so adamant in 1 John 2:15 when he says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."  We are so good at making it seem like this verse has nothing to do with the the things of the world we actually love. We are so good at rationalizing and explaining that I need this or that and therefore it isn't love of the world.  

I know the argument back at me on this is, "well we need balance."  I respectfully disagree.  Tell me what is balanced about 1 John 2:15.  Tell me what is balanced about Jesus saying that the amount of devotion he expects from us will, in comparison, make our love for family look like we hate them.  Tell me what is balanced about the Christian experience throughout scripture and throughout history in which men, women, and children, willingly suffer and die for Christ rather than be caught saying, "I love Jesus, but..."  What arrogance we have that we think we are different, that our circumstance is different and thus we play by different rules.