This Out of Control World

                This should be my best blog post ever.  I am actually sitting at a coffee shop and drinking awesome loose-leaf tea.  If I only had a Macbook, I would be a professional writer.

                Anyway, if you are even a causal news follower, you know that we are living in a crazy time.  A giant tsunami has left Japan in chaos.  Homes and businesses have been destroyed.  Power plants are on the verge of catastrophic meltdown.  In the Middle East, nations are in chaos as revolts rise up in Egypt and Libya to overthrow dictators.  Even in our country, we are not immune.  We face the issues of rising gas prices and a struggling economy.  All these events can lead us to ask some serious questions about God. 

Are these things beyond God’s control?

               

                Are these events just acts of nature and chance?  Is God unable to stop them?  These are legitimate questions in the face of such tragedy.  However, the Bible is clear that there is nothing beyond the control of God.

 Psalm 115:3 tells us that God can do whatever he wants to do.  I love this passage. There is nothing that God cannot do.  Whatever he wants to do he does.  The only thing that limits God is God.

Even nature is under the control of God.  Genesis 1 makes the point clear that God created all of nature and, as creator, he has supreme rule and control over his creation.  God is in control of the sun and rain. (Matthew 5:45) All of nature falls under his dominion.

Is God just an absentee creator?  

               

                In the movie The Adjustment Bureau, the God character steps in and out of control of world events.  During the movie, one of the “angelic” figures gives an overview of history.  He points to the worst times in human history being the times that God stepped back from control of history.  Is this what is happened now?  Has God taken a vacation?

                Psalm 121:3 is a very encouraging passage.  The psalmist is comforted in the fact that God is in control, keeping Israel from completely falling apart and God never ever sleeps.  (This makes me feel pretty weak in comparison.) God is always aware of what is going on.

 God knows the intricate details of each of us.  Psalm 139 describes the intricate knowledge God has of us, from the time we in our mother’s womb throughout our entire life.  Most amazingly he knows it all right now.  (Isaiah 46:10)

                God is in intimate control of every aspect of creation.  This is not to say he is the active cause of all things, but just to say that nothing happens without God’s knowledge or beyond his ability.

Is God evil in not stopping these tragedies?

                First, we must realize that we are all sinners, meaning we are disobedient of God.  (Romans 3:23)  This sin leads God’s wrath to be poured out.  (Colossians 3:5-6)  We really deserve nothing more than for God to crush us.  (For more on this check out my last post)  Thus, it is not evil for God to allow tragedy but it is a great mercy that God limits tragedy.

                Second, God has a plan even in horrible things.  Jeremiah 29:11 is often very poorly interpreted but in its context it is amazing.  God is speaking to the people of Israel while they are in exile.  Their land has been conquered.  They have been dragged to a foreign land.  All that they have hoped in seems dead.  And yet, God says to them that he has a plan to prosper them.  While we cannot apply this passage directly to us, we can see that God even uses terrible events to do great things in his ultimate plan.

                Finally, Romans 8:28 encourages those that believe in Christ that even the worst events in their life will be used by God for their good, either in this life or the next.

                In summary, even though our world seems to be falling apart, God is still in control.  God still has a plan. God will use all these things to the glory of his name and the furthering of his gospel.  So, I hope that addresses some of your questions.  If you have more questions, leave a comment below.

God Hates Sinners

                This may be the most controversial post I ever write.  I have debated over the past couple days if I even want to write it.  Finally, after much thought, I have decided to write this post.  This is not because I want to be controversial, though I do like to make people think and seek after answers.  I want to write this just to see what I write.  I want to write this to see what ends up on the page.  I want to write this in an attempt to finally reconcile this in my mind.  And thus, today’s adventure begins.

                Have you ever had a passage from the Bible that just messes you up?  You read this passage and your mind almost explodes, which would be very disgusting if it really did happen.  I’m not talking about a passage that is hard to understand.  Passages that mess you up the most are the ones that are easy to understand but hard to reconcile in your mind.  They are the ones that you get what they say but that you wish they didn’t say it.  They are the ones that mess with how you think about life, God and/or yourself.  They blow up your preconceived notions and bring you to a fuller understanding of a God we will never fully grasp.

                This passage was first brought to my attention by my friend Ryan almost three years ago.  We sat in a cabin at summer camp, with a group of guys, and discussed this passage until the wee hours of the morning.  This passage was messing all of us up and no one seemed to be able to find a good answer.   Since then, I have not thought of it much until this week when I heard a pastor, Matt Carter of the Austin Stone Community Church, use it in his sermon.  That sermon caused me to reflect once again on this passage, this time with some helpful insight, and, while I grasp the passage more fully now, it messed me up in a totally different way.

                Without further ado, the passage I am talking about is Psalm 5:4-5.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;

   evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;

   you hate all evildoers. (ESV, emphasis mine)

                Notice that last line.  We want to believe God is a kind loving God, and there is much Biblical precedence for that.  We want to believe God shows kindness to everyone, and there is Biblical precedence for that. (Matthew 5:45)  We hear over and over, “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” This passage seemingly blows up all those ideas.  Read it again, “God hates evildoers.” And guess what that   word “hates” means in the original Hebrew.  It means, wait for it, “hates.”  It is clear what the passage is saying.  God hates sinners and cannot have them anywhere near his presence.

                How can God hate?  Isn’t God love? (1 John 4:8) Doesn’t God command us not to hate but to love our enemies? (Luke 6:27) Is God a hypocrite?  Those are all valid questions to ask of this text.

The answer lies in the nature of God compared to the nature of man. 

                (I have to pause and give a disclaimer here.  The nature of God and the nature of man are topics that authors struggle to cover fully in dissertations and books, not single blog posts.  I’m only going to give a few thoughts to get you started.  It is up to you to search out the Scriptures for a full understanding.)

                Isaiah’s vision of God can help to give us a background to understand this passage.  In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God seated in the midst of the temple.  First, just take a minute to read through this description and be in awe of what is going.  Then take another minute and praise God.  This post will wait till you get back.

                OK, now that you are back, observe what the seraphim say about God.  They describe him as “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  This passage always leaves me in awe because it is not enough to just once say that God is holy.  The seraphim have to repeat it thrice for emphasis, which I believe still isn’t enough.  God is holy.  Holiness means to be complete, perfect, and without sin.  God has never made a mistake and his holiness demands that no one can dwell in his presence who has sinned.

                So, now that we see a glimpse of God’s nature, what about our nature?  Look at Isaiah’s response to the image of God.  He is distraught.  His sinfulness is laid bare.  He is in despair of his life, and rightfully so.   Isaiah knows that he, just like us, is a sinner.  (Romans 3:9-18)  As perfect as God is we are that imperfect.  Isaiah knows that the cost for that sin in us is death and the wrath of God.  (Romans 6:23)

                Do you see this starting to fit together?  God hates sinners because he is perfect.  God can in no way tolerate sin or those that commit sin.  Sin is disobedience to God and totally against his nature.  In light of this Biblical truth, Psalm 5:5 should not shock us.

                What should shock us is John 3:16.  What is amazing about God is not that he hates sinners but that he still shows them grace.  What is amazing is that God does not just wipe everyone out of existence.  God shows grace to everyone in letting us live for however long our life is.  (Matthew 5:45)  God shows amazing grace to anyone who will believe and put their faith in Christ by cleansing their sin and giving them eternal life.  (Acts 16:31)

                This is why this passage messes me up now.  I know that I am a wretched sinner.  I could fill pages with the things that I have done that disgust God.  There have been times that I have knowingly did what God clearly says not to do and in doing that I have figuratively spit in God’s face.  If we honestly examine ourselves in light of the Bible, it should be no surprise that God hates us.  However, it is beyond belief that God reached down to a rebellious man and, instead of pouring out his wrath, choose to save him by the grace of God.   He choose to cleanse me of my sins by the blood of his son, so, that I can dwell with Him in a loving relationship forever. God no longer hates me because he looks at me through the sacrifice of Christ and sees me as righteous.

                If you are a believer, be amazed that God showed love to a sinner such as you.  If you are not a believer, I’m not here to bash you like the people of Westboro Baptist.  I pray that you would experience the saving love of God in your life.   God hates sinners but he desires to save people and declare them righteous and sinless by the sacrifice of Christ, so, that he need not hate them anymore.

 

                “When our depravity meets his divinity it is a beautiful collision.”   David Crowder

Heroes

                Recently, I started watching the first season of the TV show Heroes on Netflix. (I realize that I’m a couple years behind.)   If you have not watched the show, it is about a group of people that realize they have special powers.  These individuals are busy with their normal lives and then, suddenly, they can do things that normal human beings cannot do.  One guy can time travel.  Another can read minds.  One girl can instantly heal, think Wolverine.  All of them are then thrust into an epic scenario in which they must save the world.

                What sticks out most to me about these people, however, are not their amazing powers.  There are many TV shows and movies that depict people with amazing powers.  What jumps off the screen about these people is that, even with all their special ability, they still struggle with the same problems that all of us face.  One is having marriage trouble.  Another is battling the pressures of high school popularity.  These “heroes” are not all that different from us.

                I have also been reading the book of Genesis.  My hope is to read the entire way through the Bible, but at the rate I’m going it could take a few years.  Anyway, the book of Genesis is filled with Bible heroes.  These are men, and sometimes women, that many of us have learned about since we were little.  Sunday School lessons are filled with the adventures of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.  Their stories make for exciting children’s material.  We are taught to look up to these men and emulate their great acts, and we should.  However, those Sunday School lessons often do not give the full picture of these men.  Just like the “heroes” from the TV show these Bible “heroes” were often far from perfect and often struggled with the same issues with which we struggle.

                I remember when I was first enlightened to this a few years ago.  I was sitting in an airport in Manila, Philippines, very tired from a long flight over the Pacific and almost insane from way to many games of Bang!, a card game.  Our group leader, Skip, asked us to read the story of Samson, Judges 13-16.  He then led us into a discussion about the reality that, even though Samson is incredibly sinful, his exploits are a major part of every Sunday School curriculum.  This was an eye opener.  I had never looked much at the immorality of our Bible heroes.  All those years of Sunday School, Bible heroes were presented as perfect humans.

                After that experience, though, I didn’t think much more of this issue until recently, probably because the next two weeks were filled with an incredible mission’s trip in the Philippines.  Then, a month ago, my friend, Ben, brought this back to the forefront of my mind with his blog post on Genesis 9.   Ben discusses the story of Noah getting drunk.  This story takes place after God has brought Noah through the flood.  Even with all that Noah had experienced, he still falls into the sin of drunkenness and exposes himself, what a great example that is for a Bible hero.

                Finally, as I started my own study of Genesis, I saw many more examples of sinful heroes.   Abraham lies about being married to Sarah, twice.  (Genesis 12 and 20) Abraham struggles with doubts about God’s promise (Genesis 15) and takes matters into his own hands. (Genesis 16)  Isaac lies about being married to Rebekah. (Genesis 26)  I could fill an entire post with the sins of Jacob.  All these men are Bible heroes.  All these men struggled and sinned.

                What then is the point of all my ramblings?  Should we no longer study these men and tell our children their stories? No way! These were great men, who God used to do great things.  God has preserved their stories through many centuries for us to read.

                The accounts of these men’s sinful actions show us one very important thing.  Our Bible heroes are extraordinarily . . . ordinary.  The point is that these men are no different from us.  They had the same struggles and they were just as messed up and sinful as us.  God makes it clear that it was He working through these men to do great things. 

                This is a wonderful truth.  I don’t know about you but I am abundantly aware of my sinfulness.  It is easy to feel that I am so screwed up that God can never use me.  The great news is that God uses screwed up sinful people every day.  We do not need to reach a certain height of spiritualness before we can be used by God.  Even in the middle of our messed up lives, God can do amazing things.  As long as we are striving to serve God, he can, and will, use us.

                I do need to note that this does not give us license to just keep living sinfully.  We are called to strive for perfection. (Matthew 5:48)  God is working to make us like Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18)  The point is that growing to holiness is a process and God uses along the way, even though we often mess up.

                In conclusion, be encouraged.  Your Bible heroes were not perfect.  They were much closer to being like you then they were to being like Christ.  There is a great God, however, who uses sinful men and women to do great things for his glory.  Seek to be used of God today, even as you are dealing with the sins and struggles in your life.  You may find that, in service to God, you also find deliverance from your struggles.

                Not to dampen the mood but I must finish with a few questions.  Do we need to change how we teach children these Bible stories?  When do we show them the imperfections in these heroes?  Do we do them a disservice if we never show them that Bible heroes are not perfect?

The Radical Obedience of Abraham (Sermon Audio)

Below is the audio from the sermon I preached February 27, 2011 at Hopewell GBC.  (Sorry, YouTube only allows for 15 minute clips, so I had to break it into four parts.)

I have to give some credit to Jeff Magnum of the Austin Stone Community Church.  His sermon on Genesis 22 inspired this sermon on Genesis 22.  You can check out Jeff's sermon at http://www.austinstone.org/resources/sermons/category/faith_is/P10/ . 

A Love Story about Story

(The following is the introduction to the sermon I will be preaching February 27, 2011 at Hopewell GBC.  I will try to put the sermon audio on the blog next week.)

            You may disagree with me on this point, but I believe that everyone loves stories.  These may be oral stories shared between friends, books, TV shows, or movies, but we all love stories.

            If you were to walk into my church, or many like it, before a Sunday morning service in the fall, you would see groups of men talking.  If you approached one of these groups and listened to the conversation, hopefully not in an awkward stalkerish way, you would, more than likely, hear them telling stories of their hunting exploits from the past week.  One guy would be telling the rest about the giant buck, so huge it must have been some kind of mutant, which he just barely missed.  Maybe guys at your church are not into hunting, but they probably like to tell some type of story about their adventures. (Story telling and love of story apply to women, too.  Male examples just come to my mind quicker.)

            So, what is it about stories that make us love them so much?  While there can be a multitude of answers to this question, one major answer is that we love to get caught up in the emotion and characters of the story.  We put ourselves in their shoes.  We feel what they feel.

            Back to the hunting stories.   The guys that tell the best hunting stories are the ones who can paint a mental image in your head and put you in the tree stand with them.  When they tell you about seeing the monster buck, you can see its massive rack in your mind.  As they tell you about their heart pounding out of their chest when they raised their rifle, your heart begins to pound.  They describe putting the crosshairs right over the heart of the deer and you can see the brown fur through the scope.  Finally, they tell you how they pulled the trigger and, even though their gun has a muzzle velocity of over 2,500 feet per second, the bullet hit a floating leaf and was knocked a foot off course. You stand there and feel their disappointment and know that, if it was you, that deer would have been dead in the back of your truck.

            Even though we get caught up in hunting stories, books, TV shows, and movies, we find the Bible boring.  This should not be the case.  The Bible is filled with stories.  God did not give us a giant book of rules and procedures.  God gave us a book of stories and letters about real events and real places.  The Bible begs us to become completely wrapped up in its stories. 

We must go beyond just a Sunday School look at Bible heroes and the moral of the story and relate to the real people that lived these stories.  When we put ourselves in the shoes of the Biblical characters and feel their emotions and struggles, they we will begin to see the amazing things an amazing God did through extraordinarily normal people.

One amazing story takes place in Genesis 22.  Read it and get wrapped up in the story of Abraham.  Then hear me speak about it Sunday or listen to the audio here next week.  (I had to include a shameless plug.) Also, feel free to add a comment below with your favorite Bible story and why it impacts your life.

(An excellent book of the importance of story in our life is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story by Donald Miller.)

Secrets to finding a Spouse

The Deuce.  Here comes my second blog post.  Hopefully I can improve on the last.

                Before we get to today’s topic a side note, it is interesting how God changes our plans.  I had a topic picked for this post and all last week I planned to write it. However, I never had the chance to sit down and write.  I also have a list of topics I want to write about but this topic isn’t on it.   Earlier this week, in my devotions, I read this passage and felt compelled to write my thoughts.  God’s plans are many times different than ours. 

                So, today I will write some thoughts on finding a spouse.  (I choose the term spouse over significant other because dating should be about finding a spouse not just a temporary partner.) As a single guy, hoping to be married some day, Genesis 24 really stuck out to me and the Holy Spirit pointed out some intriguing observations.  Since most of my readers are single young people or parents of single young people, I thought it would be beneficial to share these observations with you.

                In Genesis 24, we see that Abraham is getting old and it is time for his son Isaac to find a wife.  So, Abraham sends out his servant to find and bring back a wife for Isaac.  This is the first lesson to be learned from this passage.  Abraham was involved in helping his son find a wife.  While I don’t advocate arraigned marriages, it is still important that parents are involved in the dating/spouse finding of their children. 

I can look back at some of the girls that I have liked and now wonder why I even thought they would be a good possibility.  It is easy to get caught up in appearances and/or emotions and make mistakes.  It is easy, especially when you are young, to be look for traits in others that really are not important.  (For example, once you graduate, no one cares how popular you were in high school.)   Parents can give a more unemotional and wise assessment.  Parents you need to be involved.  Singles you need to listen to them, I say this to myself as much as to others.

My second observation is a simple one but very often not followed.  Notice from where Abraham wants Isaac’s wife to come.  Abraham does not want Isaac to marry a girl who is from the pagan nations that surround them.  Isaac’s wife is to come from Abraham’s people.  I would definitely advice against marrying someone from within your family.  Besides the birth defects, it’s just weird, unless you are from West Virginia.  You should, however, choose a wife from within your spiritual family.  2 Corinthians 6:14 explains that Christians should not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever.  If you question this, find any believer who is married to an unbeliever and ask them about the problems it creates.  They will have no struggle in finding problems that their differing beliefs create.

My cousin, Matthew, made the third observation.  If we look at verses 7 and 12, we see who is in charge of the search, not Isaac, not Abraham, but God.  Both Abraham and the servant seek God to lead them to the right women.  Who best knows us but God? (Matthew 10:30, Ps 139:13)  Who knows what we need better then God? If you are looking for a spouse, pray, pray, and pray some more.  Parents pray for your children’s future spouse.  As is the case in every area of life, we need wisdom and wisdom comes from God.  (Prov. 9:10)

My fourth and final observation is from the servant’s prayer. (Gen. 24:13-14) In the prayer, the servant clearly defines some parameters for Isaac’s spouse.  The servant does not just look for a super hot girl, though there is something to say for finding your spouse attractive, the daughter of a rich sheep herder, or any girl that will acknowledge his existence.  He asks for a girl that will give him and his camel water.  This may seem odd at first but this action would have shown some important character traits.  Getting water at this time was not as easy as opening the faucet.  This woman would have to lower a bucket into a well and then pull the heavy bucket back up once it was full of water.  Even for a ripped guy like me, a full bucket of water is not light.   If the woman was willing to draw water for the servant and his ten, yes ten, camels, then it would show that she was compassionate and hard working, great qualities to find in a wife.

                Setting parameters, especially spiritual ones, is foreign to many people, so, what parameters should you set? For guys, Proverbs 31 is a good place to start.  For girls, 1 Timothy 3 is a good start.  These passages give you a good idea of what spiritual qualities to look for.  Also, tailor qualities to the passions and interests that God has given you.  My personal qualifications for a wife include being a Godly woman, having a passion for Christ and the Bible, knowing the Bible, having a passion to work with youth and young adults, being active, and enjoying the outdoors. These are just a few qualities but should give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

                So, there you have the secrets to finding a perfect spouse.  Not exactly, these are just a few thoughts from one passage.  There is a great deal of effort that goes into relationships.  What advice do you readers have about finding a spouse?

                Most of all though pray and trust God for He is good and He is wise.