Where are you looking for Jesus?

"Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." (Luke 24:5-6)

We must always be very careful where we are seeking Jesus: among the dead or the living.

Seeking Jesus among the dead means to relegate Him and His words to the ancient wisdom of a historic figure, beneficial but optional and largely irrelevant to the issues of modern living. Seeking a living Jesus is an altogether different prospect -- one which acknowledges His mastery over death, His power over life, and His absolute authority over everything. A dead Jesus can be admired, quoted, and then easily dismissed, like an accessory to be adorned when it matches your particular outfit that day. But a living Jesus is a Lord and King, and demands our absolute devotion and total surrender. Which one we seek at any given moment says far more about us than about Him.

Love this quote from John Irving's novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany:

 "Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity; any fool cab feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don't believe in the resurrection, you're not a believer."

Following Jesus... at a distance.

Read this yesterday in the Grand Story from Luke 22 and it caught my eye...

"Then they seized [Jesus] and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance." (Luke 22:54)

Peter was "following at a distance." What does that mean? 

Peter was following Jesus, no doubt about it, and in every sense of the word. He had devoted the last three years of his life to becoming a Christ follower. He had left his career, left the comforts of home, left the security of a steady paycheck to follow a rabbi from Nazareth of all places. He was all in, no question.

But when Jesus was arrested and led away to be tried by a kangaroo court and executed, Peter followed "at a distance." By putting some space between himself and this now very unpopular Jesus, he hoped to escape notice, to blend in. "Aren't you one of his followers, too?" The question must had made his blood turn to ice in his veins even as he warmed himself by the fire that night. "Who, me? No... no, I'm not, I... I don't even know the guy."

Following Jesus is not what people do who want to blend in. It's not where you go to be under the radar. It frequently places you in the cross-hairs in the war of cultures. This is the guy who said, "Don't think that I came to bring peace; I came to bring a sword that will divide even families against each other."(Matt. 10:34) All over this one issue: who He really is. 

Because if He is who He said He is, then we are obligated to take seriously that what He says is true. And He makes some pretty bold and unpopular claims on our lives, loves, dreams, desires, money, relationships... If He is who He claimed to be, He has the right to tell us how to live. And that's not popular. Following a guy like that can get you crucified.

As a result, many Christ followers can find themselves "following at a distance." When the predominant views of the culture we live in pinch us between following Jesus faithfully and falling into line with the majority, the temptation to blend in can be strong. Will we try to slide in unnoticed next to those who warm themselves around the fires of sophistication and enlightenment, or will we fearlessly but humbly acknowledge Christ as King, and His Word as the unchangeable authority over every area of life?

Acceptance and approval have been a distraction for the modern church for decades now, and is to blame for much of its anemia. The Bible's unflinching stance on controversial issues like marriage, sexuality, parenting, and abortion (just to name a few) makes it pretty near impossible to court the approval of the culture and maintain faithfulness to Christ. In fact, Jesus promised His disciples that to follow Him was to invite the hatred of pretty much the rest of the world. (John 15:18-19) 2000 years of worldwide persecution, which continues to escalate right up to this very day, would prove Him right. To put it bluntly, the cross just isn't cool. It wasn't then, it isn't now, and it never will be. 

Every time we distance ourselves from Christ by backing off what He said to make it more palatable, or water down the scriptures to avoid being vilified in the press, or remain silent on an issue that demands we stand up and speak the truth even at great cost, it is a betrayal. We are abandoning Jesus to suffer alone at precisely the point we are called to "share in the fellowship of His sufferings."(Phil.3:10, NASB)

"And immediately while [Peter] was speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord... And he went out and wept bitterly." (Luke 22: 61-62)

The story does have a happy ending. Jesus rises from the dead. Peter is forgiven and restored and reaffirmed by Jesus. Later, he would be crucified himself for his refusal to ever follow at a distance again. But even so... I bet he never, ever forgot that look from Jesus that night. In fact, I'd wager it was precisely the memory of that look, seared into his mind and burned into his heart, that brought him to his own cross finally. And into the Kingdom where he could see that face again, and see those eyes, but with a different expression altogether.

Martha: Distraction, Anxiety, and the One Thing

Reading in the Grand Story about Martha and Mary...
"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.' " (Luke 10:38-42)

I've heard a lot of different takes on this story in my time. The latest trend has been to rush to the defense of Martha and make her heroic or misunderstood. But Jesus understood her perfectly and He addressed the problem in no uncertain terms: "Martha, you are distracted."

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines distraction as "something that makes it difficult to think or pay attention." There is nothing wrong with serving people. In fact, it's an earmark of a true disciple of Christ. Most church leaders would probably agree they would love a church full of Marthas. The problem is that Martha wasn't serving out of obedience to anything her Lord had told her to do. He was speaking. He was teaching them. It wasn't time for scurrying and working and serving. It was time for being still and listening. Martha couldn't see that because she was distracted.

What distracted her? Jesus named two specific things: anxiety and trouble. Martha was a worrier, and she was annoyed and irritated that she was the only one who seemed to be worried. The original Greek word for "troubled" is where we get the English word "turbulence." In the modern vernacular we would say she was "in a tizzy." Why? What had her worried? The key is in her request to Jesus: "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me." Did you catch that? "I'm the only one doing anything! If I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done, and then where would we all be?" I have a sneaking suspicion that even if Mary did try to help, Martha would just go behind her and re-do everything she did, all the while muttering under her breath about how if you want anything done right you just have to do it yourself.

It's easy to fall into the Martha trap. It's the classic case of an over-exaggerated sense of our own importance. I have seen it creep into ministries that started off doing good work, but  slowly, over time, they became a little world unto themselves thinking, "We are the only ones doing real ministry. Nothing else is as important as what we are doing." There began to be an attitude of contempt towards other ministries. Other ways of serving. Other styles of worship. Other approaches to preaching. Other denominations. Other people. Until we are all alone in our minds. The only ones who matter. Busyness is not so much about activity as it is the posture of our hearts.

Look, nobody asked Martha to do anything. Not from what I read in the text. Jesus simply responded to her invitation to use her house as a place to teach. It was her idea to complicate it with a bunch of extra service. Like so many churches that busy themselves with a million programs and events and activities, cleverly marketed and catering to every demographic imaginable. Jesus said, "One thing is necessary." Everything else is a distraction. But how would we ever know if that's true. We refuse to try. "No, Jesus, you don't understand. People expect it. They want it. If we don't offer it, they will just go somewhere else. Then what will happen to our church?" And then we wear ourselves out (and our volunteers) chasing every idea that pops into our heads about how church ought to be.

"One thing is necessary." Apparently, stillness is required for listening. Like the mirror-surface of a calm lake, I can only perfectly reflect an image if I am perfectly still and peaceful.

God, help me today to stay focused on that One Thing, and may all other distractions fall away. Keep pride from seducing me into believing I am indispensable or alone in my work. Let me only busy myself with those things that You have told me to do. teach me to be still and listen. For Your glory, and in the name of Jesus. Amen.

How to know if your spirit has been "stirred"

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia… Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred…” (Ezra 1: 1, 5)

The Hebrew word translated “stirred” literally means to awaken. Not stirred as in mixing two things in a container, but stirred as in roused from sleep.

What does it look like when someone’s spirit has been “stirred up”? A person whose spirit has been stirred by God:

1.  Takes God at His Word. “Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of God of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God…And they kept the Feast of Booths as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule… “ (Ezra 3:2, 4)

For these men, the scriptures weren’t something nice to put on a coffee mug. They were the words of God given not as homilies or sentimental thoughts, but as commands for living in His presence. Obedience was not optional. And when it ran up against the popular opinions and customs of the culture, they didn’t back down. Even when it meant personal suffering, they took God’s Word seriously and obeyed it to the letter.

2.     Makes worship a priority. “… the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem… and they built the altar of the God of Israel… But the foundation of the temple was not yet laid.” (Ezra 3:1-2, 6)

These guys started offering sacrifices before the foundation of the actual temple was even started yet! They weren’t going to wait until the building was completed before they began worshipping; they knew they would never be able to complete the work without God. So they began regular worship every single day from the first day forward.

Gut check: What do we let keep us from making worship the first priority of our day, every day?

·      I have to get up early for work.

·      I have to work out.

·      I’m too tired.

·      It’s too hard.

·      I forget.

·      I get busy, distracted, stressed out with other responsibilities, etc.

How easily we forsake seeking the presence of God for other, lesser gods! How freely the excuses come! But let our world get rocked by some tragedy and suffering and we immediately expect God to drop everything and make our problems His first priority.

Look, I don’t want to be legalistic about it, but the reality is that if we don’t intentionally spend time in the presence of God at the earliest possible moment each day, we will most likely never get around to it at all. The root of the word worship is worth; the root of our worship is what God is worth to us. That’s why you never see worship without sacrifice. The only way of knowing the true worth of a thing is by seeing what someone is willing to give up to get it.

3.     Get generosity. “… everyone who made freewill offerings to the LORD… So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil…” (Ezra 3: 5, 7)

Let’s just cut the crap right here, right now. If you want to know where a man’s heart is, look at what he spends his money on. Period. Ignore the whiners and squealers who start squirming when the pastor mentions giving. If someone has to stand in front of you week after week and beg you to be generous towards the work of the Kingdom, you just flat don’t get it. Sorry, but it’s true.

If you really believed the gospel, if you really understood who Jesus is and what His death, resurrection, ascension, and return really mean for this world, your pastor would have to beg you to stop giving because the church would be overwhelmed. Ha! And monkeys might fly out of my… well, you get the idea.

Generosity is the natural response to grace. A person who has received so much, so lavishly, so undeserved should have no trouble at all showing generosity towards others in need of grace.

Why don’t I give away more? Why don’t I spend more time, energy, resources, focus on those around me? The flesh is that inward gravitational pull of the heart towards self-worship. And it never sleeps. It never rests or goes away or takes a break. The second we stop being intentional about focusing our hearts on Christ, it immediately starts drifting back towards self. Like a garden that must be weeded constantly or it will revert back to wilderness, so is the heart.

When God “stirs up” our spirits, we awaken to what’s really true. And they reveals what’s really important. And that fuels our choices. And those choices take us in a direction towards God and away from self. That direction will some day end at a destination. Generosity is one of the surest signs that you are headed in the right direction.

4.     Know how to party. There is this sick idea in the modern church that emotions are bad and should not be a part of worship. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that that’s not just wrong, it’s evil. It’s a lie from the pit of Hell. The Thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And what he has successfully stolen, killed, and destroyed in modern churches in America is authentic, heart-felt, emotional worship.

Look, the appropriate response to the Gospel is overwhelming joy. It’s shouting, singing to the top of your voice, dancing like a fool and not giving a rat’s hairy backside who is watching or what they think about it. “That’s not reverent,” someone may say. My good friend and mentor Johnny Hunt would respond, “Sir, that’s not reverence; that’s rigor mortise!”

There’s no disconnect between doctrine and emotion in the Bible. The Gospel of the Kingdom is not data to be stored, it’s Truth to be celebrated – with our whole hearts!  In Ezra 3:10-13, it says that when the people finally finished the foundation – not the building, mind you, just the foundation – that they were so overcome with what that meant for them as the people of God that “all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD… But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy., so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard very far away.”

Authentic worship always, always, ALWAYS involves emotion. Emotions are part of the very image of God we bear, they are a family resemblance. Emotions are only  harmful if they are inappropriately self-focused. They were created and given to us to be appropriate responses to a God-centered reality. Those whose hearts have been roused awake by the Spirit of the Living God know this to be true – and they are happy! (See what I did there?)

"Why doesn't God answer my prayer?"

Reading in the Grand Story this morning from Isaiah...

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)

What goes through our minds when we pray and it feels like God doesn't hear us, or when we beg God to do something for us and it seems like He doesn't come through? How do we interpret that? What do we think about God in that moment? That He doesn't care about me? Doesn't love me? Doesn't exist? Does it even cross our minds that the problem is with us and not God? Is that a category that we even think in?

Proverbs 19:3 is a familiar interpretation on the silence of God and our reactions to it: "People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the LORD." (NLT) But scripture says it's not that God can't or won't act on our behalf; it's because we are living and asking at cross purposes with Him. God has a purpose: to draw people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people to Himself through Jesus Christ and make them a Kingdom. That's what the whole Bible is about, start to finish. That is Plan A, and there is no Plan B.

But that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to live as comfortably as possible for as long as possible, surrounded only by people who will tell us how great we are -- even if it cost us our freedom, our humanity, or our very lives. The apostle James says the source of our broken relationships and jacked up lives is this very thing: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:1-4)

"Enemies of God." That's what our sin makes us. And then we have the gall to be indignant when God doesn't answer our selfish prayers and grant us our three wishes. Like He owes us something! Ha! He owes us something, alright. Thank God, Jesus took what we are owed on Himself on the cross, and left it in the grave when He rose from the dead!

New category to pray in: Change what I want, God. Sync my heart to Yours. Align my life to Your purposes. "Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!" (Psalm 119:36) You can't expect the power of God on your behalf apart from the purpose of God. The PURPOSE of the POWER of God on your behalf is to bring about the Kingdom of God IN YOU. "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Eph. 3:20-21)

On this mountain...

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Great news from the Grand Story this morning... Isaiah prophecies:

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,

of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples,

the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 25:6-8)

"On this mountain." What mountain is this and where can I get me some of that? Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem which is situated high on a mountain in Israel. The same site where Abraham offered his only son and God spared Isaac by sending a substitute to take his place. ON the same mountain where David paid the full price of the threshing floor because he would not offer sacrifices to God which cost him nothing, and where the sacrifice he offered saved the nation from the penalty of sin. On the same mountain where Solomon built the Temple to be the place where God chose to gather His people and be present among them, in their midst. On this mountain Jesus, the Word made flesh, would be the substitute sacrifice, would pay the full price for our sin, and where He will return to dwell among us as our King.

"For ALL peoples." No matter who you are, where you've come from, or what you've done. This feast is available to you.

"He will swallow up... death." The veil that is spread over us all. All lay under the curse brought about by our rebellion against God. But the death and resurrection of Christ defeated it forever and made a way for us back to the life we were intended to live all along.

"God will wipe away tears from all the faces..." All the pain and hurt and suffering, sickness, disease... gone. All the shame, guilt, tragic consequences of selfish lives, the cumulative effect our brokenness has wreaked on the earth... wiped away. Jesus echoes this promise in His revelation to the Apostle John: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.' ' (Revelation 21:3-4)

"for the LORD has spoken." This is the best part. He promised. And He never breaks a promise. Not one word of His promises has ever failed. I know some who refuse to believe it. But He never promised we would never experience pain or suffering. He never promised we would not have to face the consequences of our selfishness. He never promised bad things wouldn't happen.

But He did promise that He would defeat death, lift the curse, and make all things new. He promised that the coming kingdom, for those who believe His promise, would be so great that all the tragedy and horror of centuries of human cruelty and evil has wrought would seem like "momentary, light affliction" by comparison (2 Cor. 4:17). Paul said they weren't even worth bothering to compare at all! (Rom. 8:18) God promised that we would be so comforted and healed and restored in the coming Kingdom that "the former things will not be remembered." (Isa. 65:17)

How good would something have to be to make the cumulative suffering of human history seem like nothing more than a dim memory? I don't think we have the capacity to even imagine it. So instead we are faced with a choice: believe the Promise and live like it's true, or give up in despair and make a god out of whatever you can find laying around that will numb the pain until you die.

I have made my choice. I believe the Promise. I've made my home "on this mountain." I hope to see you there!