How shall I describe the kingdom of God?
To what shall I liken it?
It is like 4 siblings gathering for breakfast in their parents' farmhouse before the day's chores begin. The parents offer a hearty meal for their children, but they each respond differently.
The smartest sibling takes his meal and examines each food under a magnifying glass. He wonders at all the different ingredients, how they blend together to make such a marvelous meal. So driven by intellect, he looks so closely at his food that he never gets around to eating his meal.
The busiest sibling grabs a biscuit off her plate while running through the kitchen. So driven by duty and clamoring demands, she never eats her meal.
The most passionate, spiritual sibling leans over his plate and inhales each aroma. He lingers over the coffee, the meat, the biscuits, the eggs, everything. So thrilled by each experience, he gets lost in savoring each aroma until the plate is too cold to eat.
The hungriest sibling sits down, thanks her parents for the meal, and eats her fill. So satisfied is she by the meal that she accomplishes all her chores with ease, and everything she does prospers.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Worship - Not a Spectator Sport
Sometimes when we worship, we have the idea that it should go something like this:
Maybe what we're experiencing is a bit more attractive:
Regardless, the idea seems to be that worship is something we sit and watch others do. We watch something beautiful. We hear something profound. We share some experiences and then we go about the business of our real lives, and only rarely do the two - worship and life - impinge upon one another.
Nothing could be farther from the biblical picture of worship. Our world is dying, our friends and neighbors are destroying themselves in idolatrous lives, and Paul has something to say about it!
Rom 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
I bet no one ever told you that is a worship text. The whole book of Romans is about worship! Worship of God contrasted with worship of idols. Paul goes so far as to call his Jewish family that rejects King Jesus idolators too!
True Worship of Almighty God, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not a spectator sport. It is the most dangerous way of life in the cosmos. True worship defies the corrupt powers in the world around us. True worship says "Jesus is LORD" and no one else is!
Mark Labberton writes, "The crisis the church currently faces is that our individual and corporate worship do not produce the fruit of justice and righteousness that God seeks. This creates a crisis of faithfulness before God and a crisis of purpose before the world. Scripture indicates that our personal and communal worship are meant to shape our vision and fire our engines to be daring disciples, imitating and sharing the love of Jesus Christ in acts of righteousness and justice. What's more, the Bible teaches that the people of the world, whether they believe it or not, suffer and die while waiting for us in the church to live like the people of God, demonstrating our worship with our lives (Romans 8:18-25). The heart of the battle over worship is this: our worship practices are separated from our call to justice and, worse, foster the self-indulgent tendencies of our culture rather than nurturing the self-sacrificing life of the kingdom of God. We are asleep. Nothing is more important than for us to wake up and practice the dangerous act of worship, living God's call to justice." (The Dangerous Act of Worship, pp. 22-23)
In another setting, perhaps an even more central one, Paul writes this:
Eph 5:14 "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you,"
...freely paraphrasing another call to worship:
Isa 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
Beloveds, only our worship reveals us to the world as sons and daughters of the Most High God!
Only ss we worship Him will we become more like Him.
Only as we reflect His shining light into the darkness of our world (rather than at each other or back at God) will the kingdom of God burst forth with healing restorative love in our homes, our workplaces, the places and people we encounter every day. This is the mission of God.
Let our brother Luke tell us a story to conclude:
And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
in HIS love,
Nick
Maybe what we're experiencing is a bit more attractive:
Regardless, the idea seems to be that worship is something we sit and watch others do. We watch something beautiful. We hear something profound. We share some experiences and then we go about the business of our real lives, and only rarely do the two - worship and life - impinge upon one another.
Nothing could be farther from the biblical picture of worship. Our world is dying, our friends and neighbors are destroying themselves in idolatrous lives, and Paul has something to say about it!
Rom 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
I bet no one ever told you that is a worship text. The whole book of Romans is about worship! Worship of God contrasted with worship of idols. Paul goes so far as to call his Jewish family that rejects King Jesus idolators too!
True Worship of Almighty God, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not a spectator sport. It is the most dangerous way of life in the cosmos. True worship defies the corrupt powers in the world around us. True worship says "Jesus is LORD" and no one else is!
Mark Labberton writes, "The crisis the church currently faces is that our individual and corporate worship do not produce the fruit of justice and righteousness that God seeks. This creates a crisis of faithfulness before God and a crisis of purpose before the world. Scripture indicates that our personal and communal worship are meant to shape our vision and fire our engines to be daring disciples, imitating and sharing the love of Jesus Christ in acts of righteousness and justice. What's more, the Bible teaches that the people of the world, whether they believe it or not, suffer and die while waiting for us in the church to live like the people of God, demonstrating our worship with our lives (Romans 8:18-25). The heart of the battle over worship is this: our worship practices are separated from our call to justice and, worse, foster the self-indulgent tendencies of our culture rather than nurturing the self-sacrificing life of the kingdom of God. We are asleep. Nothing is more important than for us to wake up and practice the dangerous act of worship, living God's call to justice." (The Dangerous Act of Worship, pp. 22-23)
In another setting, perhaps an even more central one, Paul writes this:
Eph 5:14 "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you,"
...freely paraphrasing another call to worship:
Isa 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
Beloveds, only our worship reveals us to the world as sons and daughters of the Most High God!
Only ss we worship Him will we become more like Him.
Only as we reflect His shining light into the darkness of our world (rather than at each other or back at God) will the kingdom of God burst forth with healing restorative love in our homes, our workplaces, the places and people we encounter every day. This is the mission of God.
Let our brother Luke tell us a story to conclude:
And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
in HIS love,
Nick
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Parables
The kingdom of God is like an artist who built a beautiful gallery to display his masterwork, a great mural-sized painting covering an entire warehouse-sized wall. Then he left and began to travel the city, teaching and painting and helping people see the world in different ways, more clearly than before. He traveled that city, then the country, then around the world.
Finally he returned to the city, dirty and tired from his travels. He rushed to the gallery and looked for his masterwork, the pinnacle of his creative energies, the clearest expression of his vision. It was still there, right where he painted it, but the board of directors at the gallery had long since covered most of it with curtains. Only a small portion of this huge, evocative work could be seen and appreciated.
The artist said, "This is wrong! What you are displaying is not my work!"
The board said, "Yes, it is! We display what you gave us."
The artist said, "What you display is what you want to display, not what I gave you to display."
The board said, "It is ours to display now."
The artist replied, "As you wish," and left without another word.
The next day, newspeople found the great artist in the subway, recreating his masterwork.
Day after day, he was found in different places, recreating his masterwork. Eventually the gallery closed, because no one needed to go there to see a tiny sliver of beauty when the whole panoply could be seen in every community of the city.
The kingdom of God is also like a city with many groups of people speaking many different languages. One man decided that it would be good for a group of his people to learn the languages of other groups, so they could share the wisdom they'd received from God. They had not been about this work long when the man received reports that some of his friends had been killed. "They hated us! They thought we were spies coming to destroy them!" While he thought about this, the leaders of his own people summoned him. "Who do you think you are? You cannot change the old wisdom. If anyone wants to be wise, they must learn our language." He and his followers were killed, but Wisdom is justified by all her children.
Hear if you have ears, for the time is short.
in HIS love,
Nick
Finally he returned to the city, dirty and tired from his travels. He rushed to the gallery and looked for his masterwork, the pinnacle of his creative energies, the clearest expression of his vision. It was still there, right where he painted it, but the board of directors at the gallery had long since covered most of it with curtains. Only a small portion of this huge, evocative work could be seen and appreciated.
The artist said, "This is wrong! What you are displaying is not my work!"
The board said, "Yes, it is! We display what you gave us."
The artist said, "What you display is what you want to display, not what I gave you to display."
The board said, "It is ours to display now."
The artist replied, "As you wish," and left without another word.
The next day, newspeople found the great artist in the subway, recreating his masterwork.
Day after day, he was found in different places, recreating his masterwork. Eventually the gallery closed, because no one needed to go there to see a tiny sliver of beauty when the whole panoply could be seen in every community of the city.
The kingdom of God is also like a city with many groups of people speaking many different languages. One man decided that it would be good for a group of his people to learn the languages of other groups, so they could share the wisdom they'd received from God. They had not been about this work long when the man received reports that some of his friends had been killed. "They hated us! They thought we were spies coming to destroy them!" While he thought about this, the leaders of his own people summoned him. "Who do you think you are? You cannot change the old wisdom. If anyone wants to be wise, they must learn our language." He and his followers were killed, but Wisdom is justified by all her children.
Hear if you have ears, for the time is short.
in HIS love,
Nick
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Word - The Primary Means of Growth
With the young adult class at Holly Hill, I am exploring means of experiencing the victory that Christ promised to all believers. I will be encouraging them to journal this exploration according to six general headings of growth. The most vital, the most foundational, is Word.
Psalm 1 says:
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1 says:
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
"God remains with the Bible always. It is God's book. No one owns it but God himself. It is the loving heart of God made visible and plain. And receiving this message of exquisite love is the great privilege of all who long for life with God. Reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating upon Scripture has always been the foundation of the Christian disciplines. All of the disciplines are built upon Scripture. Our practice of the spiritual disciplines is kept on course by our immersion in Scripture. And so it is, we come to see, that this reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating is totally in the service of 'the life which is life indeed' (1 Tim 6:19; also Jn 10:10). We long with all our heart to know for ourselves this with-God kind of lofe that Jesus brings in all its fullness.
"And the Bible has been given to help us. God has so superintended the writing of Scripture that it serves as the most reliable guide for our spiritual formation. But God uses human action in its presentation to the world, just as it is authored by humans. Thus we must consider how we ourselves can come to the Bible and also how we can present it to all peoples in a way that inducts them into the eternal kind of life.
"We begin by finding experientially, day by day, how to let Jesus Christ live in every dimension of our being. In Christian community, we can open our lives to God's life by gathering regularly in little groups of two or more to encourage one another to discover the footprints of God in our daily existence and to venture out with God into areas where we have previously walked alone or not at all.
"But the aim is the re-formation of the inner self--of the spiritual core, the place of thought and feeling, of will and character. The psalmist cries, 'You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart... Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me' (Psalm 51)." - from Living the Mission
As we venture out with Christ and with our Christian community, let the words of Psalm 51 be a song for our souls... let our hearts sing to our Maker of our need for renewal and transformation... and let that song echo through our doings, showing the people around us a glimpse of how God's will is done, "on earth as in heaven."
in HIS love,
Nick
The lyrics to the song are:
Create In Me a Clean Heart - Terry Talbot © Birdwing/Cherry Lane Music
Create in me a clean heart oh God
Let me be like you in all my ways
Give me your strength, teach me your song
Shelter me in the shadow of your wings
For we are your righteousness
If we die to ourselves and live through your death
Then we shall be born again to be blessed in your love!
Scriptural Reference:
"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm 51:10
"The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him." Exodus 15:2
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Eight Adventurous Years
Eight years ago today, I was waking up with a awful taste in my mouth and sunlight stabbing my eyeballs. Out too late, up too early, and in an unfamiliar bed besides. I was very confused.
Then I sat up and saw a commercial suitbag hanging on the door of the borrowed bedroom, and reality came bursting in.
The amazing endocrine system my Father designed for me flooded my system with adrenaline. My heart raced... my mouth got drier... my headache faded... I bolted up from bed, and started trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do with the rest of the day.
Five hours till my wedding started and, since I'm a guy, I had nothing to do. I honestly wish women would allow themselves to have it as easy as guys do on their wedding day.
Guys don't have to get their hair done in some magical array.
Guys don't have to have special spackle applied to their face (although maybe we should!).
Guys don't normally have to send someone sprinting across town to find their wedding garments. We just get dressed and wear them to the wedding.
You see, we guys are very comfortable understanding that have absolutely no control over anything that happens on our wedding day except the two words that are expected to come out of our mouths. This is very important. Why?
Because, when Carly Rae Bowman began her very last walk down the center aisle of a church, when I saw her in white and silver and crimson...
Eight years later, I'm still thrilled. I'm still stunned. I'm still proud to be her husband. But I'm not so scared anymore. We've failed each other, but we've succeeded for each other so much more. She has taught me so much about grace and perseverance and stubbornness and love.
Thank you, Father... may we have so many more years together...
in HIS love,
Nick
Then I sat up and saw a commercial suitbag hanging on the door of the borrowed bedroom, and reality came bursting in.
The amazing endocrine system my Father designed for me flooded my system with adrenaline. My heart raced... my mouth got drier... my headache faded... I bolted up from bed, and started trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do with the rest of the day.
Five hours till my wedding started and, since I'm a guy, I had nothing to do. I honestly wish women would allow themselves to have it as easy as guys do on their wedding day.
Guys don't have to get their hair done in some magical array.
Guys don't have to have special spackle applied to their face (although maybe we should!).
Guys don't normally have to send someone sprinting across town to find their wedding garments. We just get dressed and wear them to the wedding.
You see, we guys are very comfortable understanding that have absolutely no control over anything that happens on our wedding day except the two words that are expected to come out of our mouths. This is very important. Why?
Because, when Carly Rae Bowman began her very last walk down the center aisle of a church, when I saw her in white and silver and crimson...
...I understood the wisdom of only giving the groom two little words all day. I almost forgot THEM. I was so thrilled to be marrying this young woman... so stunned that she would have me... so scared of failing her... so proud when she said, "I do."
Eight years later, I'm still thrilled. I'm still stunned. I'm still proud to be her husband. But I'm not so scared anymore. We've failed each other, but we've succeeded for each other so much more. She has taught me so much about grace and perseverance and stubbornness and love.
Thank you, Father... may we have so many more years together...
in HIS love,
Nick
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