heaven's anthem

Of the things I treasure most about the Christmas season, few surpass its music. Perhaps the songs are special because they are heard only for a short time each year. Or maybe they hold sentimental connections to a simpler time when I was a child and all was well with the world. Yet, while these explanations own a measure of truth, the melodies pervade upon me more deeply than occasion or memory ever could.

 

The carols of Christmas speak of hope and truth that awaken something slumbering within the soul.

 

Among my favorites is It Came upon the Midnight Clear. Its haunting, ethereal melody stirs my heart, and its words are just as poignant:

 

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

 

A heavenly anthem is sung over our world, a prophetic tune of hope and redemption and restoration. It is relentless in its insistence that even the most sorrowful notes of our saddest dirges may yet compose a movement within the divine symphony. It whispers to us that dissonance punctuates the masterpiece. And all the while, heaven harmonizes its golden tones with those darker strains of our existence. Our bleakest valley cannot conceal it; our loudest Babel noises cannot drown it out. With this melody, eternity pierces the human condition.

 

See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God

is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Isaiah 12:2, NLT)

 

So we are invited to lay down the burden of being a fallen creature, the weight of our inadequacies and failings to be enough. We are welcomed to rest, to cease our strivings, that we may be renewed. If we will but listen, if we will but believe, our salvation is at hand:

 

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

 

This season, may we listen intently to hear the angelic refrain. May its lovely sound stir our hearts and rouse our souls to look heavenward. May it remind us of the gift that is Christmas, wrapped in skin and swaddling cloth, and placed lovingly beneath the shadow of a tree.

why the church can't survive without youth

Why does the church need youth? Recent circumstances prompted me to consider this question in greater depth than day-to-day ministry normally requires. Churches everywhere expend thousands of dollars annually to build and sustain student ministries. But why? Is it truly worth the cost? Here are the top reasons why young people are indispensable to the church’s existence:

1. They are the future of the church. This is obvious nearly to the point of being trite. But it cannot go without being said because it is easily forgotten. Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us, “Be careful never to forget what you have seen the Lord do for you. Do not let these things escape your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren” (NLT, emphasis mine). This directive to give a spiritual inheritance to succeeding generations through instruction is repeated at least 4 times in the Old Testament, and this repetition serves to underscore its importance. The point is that successive generations are spiritual heirs who must be trained to take up the mantle of leadership. And this applies not only to our biological descendants, but to adopted spiritual heirs as well. In the New Testament, Paul writes at length about adoption into the family of God, and calls himself a spiritual father to many.
2. They perpetuate the faith. Where there are generational gaps, there is discontinuity in the succession of faith. Scripture highlights the importance of teaching our inheritors while they are young, before the cynicism of secular (read “godless) thought has its say. As Proverbs has it, “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it” (22:6, NLT). It certainly is not coincidental that Jesus taught on the importance of childlike faith. Indeed, the Old Testament, particularly the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah, provides sober accounts of the enormity of damage that can be done in a single generation’s time.
3. They are the here-and-now of the church. It is all-too easy to consign youth to a future tense as leaders-in-training whose voices are not yet developed. But this attitude ignores Biblical reality. Broadly speaking, all of us – veteran saint and sage included – are works in progress. If we waited until we were “ready” for leadership, the church would be perpetually leaderless. True, we are instructed to carefully select our leaders and avoid hastily thrusting untried individuals into such positions (1 Timothy 3:10, 5:22). Yet the fact remains that the perfect and fully-prepared leader is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. In particular, young people are a vital element of church dynamics; their as-of-yet unfettered zeal lends an energy and drive that pushes us toward the fulfillment of our lofty calling, and it complements the time-tempered experience of seasoned believers.
4. They are powerful examples of the faith. So much of secular culture focuses upon the young. So when they rise as champions of the cross, they send a compelling message, both to those outside the church and those within it. Paul understood this quite clearly, reminding his young protégé, Timothy: “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity” (1 Timothy 4:12, NLT). One needs only to consider the many heroes of faith who were “underage” when God used them: Samuel, David, Josiah, Esther, Mary. And we cannot forget Jesus in that list: “And a little child will lead them all” (Isaiah 11:6, NLT). Without question, the church would be a different place had these individuals waited until an “appropriate” age to do God’s work.

 

Young people are prone to being rambunctious, rash, ill-mannered, and self-centered. But we need them, just as they need us. We all wore their shoes once, and we are where we are because caring elders took the time to lovingly, graciously, and patiently instruct us through our own unloveliness, gracelessness, and impatience. None of us arrived at our present spiritual state independently. We, then, owe it to our forebears – and to our own successors – to do likewise.

love without a price tag

Reflecting upon the cross, I at times wonder: Is my love conditional? Do I put a price tag on my love? Do I withhold or restrict it based upon the actions and character of others, effectively establishing the price which must be paid in order to receive it?

 

In moments of candor, we concede that none of us is immune to this tendency. Yet we recognize that humanity is at its best when our love most closely approximates the unconditional. Whispers of such unqualified love echo down through the human saga to stir our hearts: The Benedictine nuns who cared for 17th century plague victims, knowing full well it would require their lives; the gallant men who refused to board the Titanic’s lifeboats, giving their places instead to women and children; the countless military personnel who fell in killing fields far from home to secure the freedoms of people they would never meet. Such valorous acts move us because we know, somewhere deep in our souls, that this is what we are meant to be. Herein lies the power of redemption, inspiring us to rise up and become better people.

 

It is to this pinnacle that Jesus calls us, as he called the Twelve so long ago: “Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13, NIV). While the heroism of those who have literally obeyed this summons cannot and should not be diminished, in a real sense it requires even greater resolve to observe this command day after day. To quietly and unassumingly seek the welfare of ally and foe, to give freely and sacrificially, to overlook the faults and slights of others – this is what Jesus intended when he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23, NLT).

 

Love is the only currency valuable enough to redeem our world. All others have, in our long history, been employed and have failed – hatred and bloodletting, enlightenment and philosophy, commerce and prosperity, tolerance and socialist dogmas. At best, these mask the underlying antagonisms and rifts. But love changes things. It was love which drove Jesus to the cross, love which coursed from his veins, love which endured the full fury of God’s wrath toward sin, love which reconciled us with the God who is himself love personified.

 

Shoulder your cross daily. Jesus speaks to us still, urging us gently but insistently to become agents of redemption in these desperate days. Will we love as he has loved us? Let us lay down all demands for payment, giving away freely that which was first given freely to us.

orthodoxy, heresy, legacy

Down through the ages, men and women of steadfast conviction have defended Christianity against violent overthrow from without and subtle amendment from within. This noble charge commenced with the Apostles – those privileged few who walked alongside Jesus and whose names we know so well: John, Peter, James. The mantle was then assumed by others who, though not in the company of Jesus, were nonetheless revolutionized by his voice. Saul became Paul, the eminent missionary and church planter. Luke the physician became the meticulous chronicler of the Gospel and its spread. From here, the trail becomes hazy for most of us and we lose the scent in the dusty annals of history. But the hard work of preserving Jesus’ message was not done. Stalwart guardians like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine stood firm in their defense of orthodoxy (“right belief”).

 

This unbroken line of succession has spanned the twenty or so centuries which have passed since Jesus entrusted his ministry to the Twelve. And it has, in some manner or another, been given to us. What will we do with it? Will we preserve it, as previous generations did against devious doctrines and pagan heresies? Some might argue that such heretical teachings are extinct. But have you never heard someone say that Jesus was a good man, a prophet, perhaps one of the best men who ever lived – but not God? This is nothing less than the substance of the ancient heresies of Adoptionism and Arianism, whose roots reach back to the 3rd century. Or have you never heard someone suggest that heaven awaits all who endeavor to live their lives as basically good people? This same strand of self-dependence informed the credos of the Gnostics, Donatists, and Novatianists, whose aberrations have plagued the Church since its inception.

 

As Solomon once said, “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NLT).

 

Friends, we have a very cunning enemy who uses the most insidious of means to trip us up: “The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made” (Genesis 3:1, MSG). This is precisely why Jesus tells us to be “as shrewd as snakes” (Matthew 10:16, NIV). You see, Satan may be clever, but he is predictable; his M.O. has been the same since Eden: To twist the truth, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly. We see this manifested in his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:9-11). And so, Paul reminds us that “we are not unaware of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11, NIV). This is why it is so vital for us to immerse ourselves in the truth that has been preserved for us.

 

Will we, in the tradition of our forebears, defend the faith against violent overthrow from without and subtle amendment from within? Will our legacy to the next generation of believers be a pure and undiluted Gospel, held in trust until their day? May we echo to posterity the words of the Apostle Paul:

 

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me – that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NLT)

questions for a domesticated church

On occasion, I wonder: Have we, the Church, domesticated Christianity? That is, have we taken the seed sown by Jesus and cross-pollinated it with the notions of our postmodern, post-Enlightenment world? Do we cultivate and modify the Gospel to suit our tastes and lifestyles rather than altering ourselves to its standards? These are questions we must consider.

 

Do we perceive our world through the lens of Jesus’ teaching, or do we turn the tables – proof-texting the Bible with the skepticism of scientific-method minds? Is Scripture a document which we edit and rewrite (read, “retranslate”) to fit more seamlessly and inconspicuously within the confines of our cultural context? Or is its truth so absolute and binding that, jarring and incongruous as it may be with the surrounding philosophies, it speaks to all people across all eras without need for revision?

 

In our desire for comfort and security, have we made Christianity safe? Have we tamed the Lion of Judah? I’m reminded of an interchange from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lucy Pevensie questions Mr. Beaver about Aslan, the lion whose character represents Christ. “Is he – quite safe?” she asks. Mr. Beaver’s reply is as profound as it is powerful: “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Jesus will not be made into something he is not. He is no docile pet, harmless like a declawed housecat. Nor has he promised us a journey free of peril.

 

I cannot help but suspect that this tamed rendering of the Gospel is, in large part, responsible for much of the apathy within and toward churches today. Sadly, the version embraced by so many more closely resembles the contents of a textbook than the power of God. Its tendency is to skirt any serious discussion of the supernatural, denying the reality of daily campaigns waged by angels and their fallen nemeses. In this same edition, prophecy, tongues, and healing are dismissed as relics of a primitive and superstitious world, now mere anachronisms to our rationalized understanding of God. Those few “spiritual” gifts which have escaped redaction are the more innocuous and explicable ones such as teaching, administration, and encouraging – skills which can readily be attributed to human aptitude.

 

This all, I believe, comes back to the workings of our sin-stained human nature. It ceaselessly tries to take center stage and make us the central character. So, consciously or unconsciously, we fight a bent to view God as a reflection of us – someone we can understand, confine to a list of principles and predictable behaviors. How easily we forget that we are his reflection and, as such, are primarily spiritual. In short, we do ourselves and posterity a disservice by making faith more about intellect, emotion, or habit than the spiritual essence that it is.

 

We live in a tug-of-war world, strained between competing realities. But we must not permit our senses to trick us; the spiritual is predominant. And we need a faith that is broad and encompassing enough to navigate this life while pointing us onward toward the next.

the coming of spring

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Psalm 126:5-6, TNIV

 

Sadness sings a dismal note:

“Mourn with me for what God wrote –

living words lie pallid, strewn,

a tree of life now hacked and hewn,

a tapestry ripped at its seams –

sing requiems for heaven’s dreams.”

But Hope awakens melody

of long-forgotten memory:

“Son of man, o child of woe,

He did not write it to be so.

Can the fallen live again?

(Eternity asks this question.)

Within you is Eden’s crypt,

buried there since Adam slipped.

You carry in you precious seed,

life that’s waiting to be freed.

Will dormant seed burst from its tomb

and new life issue from this womb?

You are animated earth,

a garden ready to give birth.”

 

May we ever remember that our God crafted life from dust; that in his hands, impossibilities become realities; that through him, even death is but a stepping stone to eternity’s expectancy. Let us never lose heart, never abandon hope, and never give up, for redemption’s story is still being penned within us.

see-through prayers

Sometimes, early in the morning when the sun’s rays are just beginning to stream through the stained glass, I come to the altar. I know I can pray anywhere, that God’s sense of hearing is not confined to a sanctuary. But here, I find something reverent in the stillness and the solitude.

 

Out of habit and respect, I take off my shoes. I remember Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush and that of his apprentice, Joshua, standing face-to-face with the commander of heaven’s army. “Take off your sandals,” they were told. “[F]or you are standing on holy ground,” and, “the place where you are standing is holy (Exodus 3:5, Joshua 5:15; NLT). Shoeless, I stand before God; I’m not walking away from him.

 

Next, I drop my satchel. It houses my laptop, flash drive, planner, and notes. It represents my work – not only what I do for a living but, more broadly, my labors for the Kingdom. Yet, here with God, all of those are secondary. He is my provider, so I need not think of how the bills will be paid. (If I have my wallet, I drop that, too). And in his eyes, my exertions are not nearly as important as my heart.

 

Reaching into my left pocket, my cell phone is next to go – and with it, all of the text messages and phone calls that will be sent and received today. At this moment, I am speaking with the Creator of the universe; any other conversation can, for a few moments, be put on hold.

 

My keys are in the other pocket, and I take them out, too. Those keys open many doors, both within the church and outside of it. One might rightly say they represent my authority. But for now, the only door I need to walk through is the one leading into God’s presence, and I require no other power than that which he offers: “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 4:16, NLT).

 

Finally, I remove my sunglasses. They are both functional and fashionable, protecting my eyes from the sun’s radiation and offering me that “cool youth pastor” look. But in the light of God’s radiance, the sun pales in comparison; no polarized lens can shade my eyes from his brilliance. And bowing before him, my trendiness is but a pretense; he sees past trends and into the depths of my soul.

 

For a few all-too-brief moments, before facing the grind of daily life and ministry, all is well with my world. Alone with God, divested of earthly status symbols, I am where I was always meant to be. This is home. And someday, I will shed these veneers for good. But for now, I steal a few moments to be alone with God in the morning.

spiritual amnesia

We live in a world beset with an acute case of amnesia. We forget that ours is a dual reality – that beneath the skin of physical existence is a spiritual realm. We forget that Satan is not the villain in a bedtime story, but a very real antagonist possessing very real angelic power. We forget that he is hell-bent on our destruction. We forget that we are freedom fighters in an all-out war for the unclaimed souls of humanity.

 

And we forget the strength that lies within us. Perhaps we need a reminder.

 

It is far-too easy to lose sight of the battle which rages just beyond the reach of our senses: We cannot see it, nor do we hear it, and we have never touched it. But it is there. The hater of our souls would have us believe that all such talk of combat is purely metaphorical, or that it is confined to the spaces of heaven and hell; certainly it never touches our lives. Oh, the master of deception, the father of lies, the spinner of stories! It is a fatal fiction we believe. This is why Scripture tells us – in no uncertain terms – that we walk “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV).

 

I constantly witness this devastating naïveté in my students. It is painfully evident as they speak to me of their heartaches and problems. Of course, some of this is simply the product of a fallen world. But it goes without saying that the accuser capitalizes on every human weakness, every insecurity, every fracture within our homes and relationships. He lurks in shadows, sowing the seeds of discord. The cunning snake, he smells weakness and coils himself, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Our first line of defense, then, is to recognize what is really going on.

 

As John, beloved friend and confidant of Jesus, said, “Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:3, NIV; emphasis mine). John, like his fellow apostles, operated under the belief that the spirit of the Antichrist – i.e. Satan – was already at work. We would be wise to do the same.

 

And yet, we need not fear, for the record does not end there. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than that one who is in the world” (4:4, NIV). It is true that Satan stalks our earth like a predator, hunting the weak and the sick. But his ferocity is more than matched by that of Judah’s Lion: “I’m the Holy One and I’m here – in your very midst… I will roar like a lion – Oh, how I’ll roar!” (Hosea 11:9-10, MSG). He is right here, standing shoulder to shoulder with us, fighting on our behalf.

 

In Jesus, the outcome of this battle is already assured. “Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:38, NLT). God did not merely edge out a win over Satan; there was never a deadlock between the forces of good and evil. The triumph is overwhelming. Consider the words of Paul, writing to the church at Colosse: “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (2:15, NIV). Jesus shamed our adversary, making slaves of the slavers, binding them in the very shackles which once bound us. It is ours to stand in this victory.

 

We must remember that we are coregents with Jesus himself: “If we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17, NIV). We bear the mark of his signet, which means that we bear his authority (Ephesians 1:13). We are the spiritual successors of Peter, to whom Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19, NRS). We speak on behalf of the King when we align ourselves with the purposes of his Kingdom; we voice the full authority of Jesus when our words echo his Word.

 

Let us remember.

solomon & samson

When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn't realize the Lord had left him. So the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains…

– Judges 16:20-21, NLT

Is there anything so tragic as one unmistakably marked for greatness who throws it all away?

 

Such is the story of Samson, a man “like the sun” – so named because he would fracture the darkness of Philistine dominance and usher in a brighter era. He was, without question, born to lead, hailed by God himself to be the liberator of a nation (Judges 13:5). Yet, the mighty Samson is remembered as a washout, a letdown, a fallen hero. Falling for a pretty face that belied treachery, the man who routed myriads ended his days blinded and bound by chains. How sad. How ironic. And how prophetic.

 

This planet is filled to the brim with modern-day Samsons: Young men and women destined for great things. Theirs is a generation of would-be freedom-fighters, born to break chains. But following in the missteps of their predecessor, they sell themselves out, spending their strength on the very things that will steal it: drugs, booze, dead-end relationships, and cheap thrills. Suckered into bondage, they cheat themselves – and others – of liberty.

 

We must reach them before they are shorn of their priceless gift. It is ours to train, to stand between them and the Delilahs that would sell them into captivity. Who will teach them of the true source of strength if not us? Who will instruct them of the sacredness of their trust if we do not?

 

Solomon tells us in Proverbs that, “The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old” (20:29, NLT). Youthful vitality must be tempered by the wisdom of years. Herein, O Church, lies our calling and the underpinning of our might. Unity within the Body of Christ is not a nicety but a requisite for survival. As Jesus has it, a house divided is doomed to fall (Matthew 12:25). Generations must cross the cultural chasms which divide us so that prudence might harness vigor, that energy might animate insight.

 

Solomon and Samson: Now there is a dynamic duo.

the problem of evil

In a recent conversation, a friend of mine posed a question: If God knew from the very beginning all that would happen – the insurrection of Lucifer and humanity’s subsequent choice to rebel – why did he continue on with creation? I knew immediately what he was getting at. Why didn’t God do something to stop it? It is a dilemma that haunts us, gnawing at the edges of our faith: Why does God allow evil?

 

We see its effects all around us, filling up our world with pain and suffering and death. The remnants of broken hearts and broken lives litter our existence like refuse. Boldface headlines scream to us of war-torn nations, innocents used and abused, natural disasters ravaging the already-impoverished. Subconsciously, we find ourselves asking, “How could God let this happen?”

 

The devout and the deviant alike have brooded over this for millennia. More than a few skeptics have, for lack of satisfactory answers, dismissed all possibility of God’s existence: “A loving God wouldn’t…” And as many believers have for the same reason stagnated in their faith. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps we need to reframe our inquiry: “How could a loving God not allow evil?”

 

Ever since Lucifer’s expulsion from heaven in the wake of his failed coup, a question mark has hung over our universe: Is God good or is he merely powerful? That is, does he rule from a beneficent heart or is he an iron-fisted dictator? Herein we find the reason for our free will. If God had not given us the capacity to choose, we would be puppets, moved by the whims of a superior power. But God desires more of us. His heart longs for relationship. He craves our affection and love. These, by definition, can never be the product of coercion; they must be given freely, for love that is compelled is not love at all.

 

And so God presented to our first parents a choice – to live in a utopian state of innocence, free from all defect and blight, or to choose independence. We know how the story goes. Humanity inclined its collective ear to the sibilant whisperings of a wayward serpent as he revived his seditious mantra: “Is God good? Can he be trusted? He holds out on you! Rise up and take for yourself what he will not give.” We hear echoing in his words to Eve – “eat from that tree [and] you’ll be just like God” (Genesis 3:5, MSG) – his own duplicitous ambitions:

 

How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning. You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heaven and be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14, NLT; emphasis mine)

 

To prove once for all his intentions and in hopes of winning our love, God did the unthinkable; for a second time, he exposed his heart to be broken, knowing that it indeed would be. For the prospect of love, God permitted the possibility of hate. And in true turncoat fashion, humanity chose the latter, siding with Satan and the fallen angels. That decision, freely made, held untold consequences: War and murder, poverty and injustice, famine and death. These are the repercussions, not of a loveless God, but of our choice. Could God speak the word and mend our broken world, erasing all traces of suffering? Of that there is no doubt. But to do so would be to overturn our capacity to choose and thus, our ability to love.

 

And yet in steadfast devotion and tireless love, God pursues us. The resolute romantic, he would win back our hearts from the enemy who stole them. We see in Jesus, not the annulment of our choice, but one who offers us the opportunity to change our mind, to return to that fateful moment in Eden and choose rightly.

 

Just as we reframe the question, let us also reorient our vision, learning to look at this world through God’s eyes. What he saw within the epochs of eternity past, we must see today: Missteps and the molestations of evil do not negate the goodness of what God created; each is an opportunity for redemption. “Oh your cross, it’s where my hope restarts – a second chance is heaven’s heart.”

a revolution of honesty

If we’re ever going to get this right, if we’re ever going to live this life as it was meant to be lived, we have to ask the tough questions. We have to dig deep and be honest with ourselves, even if it hurts… If we could pull back the curtain to reveal what is really going on, we would see what Zeke saw: A war-torn world filled with death. But there’s good news. God doesn’t like that ending, so he’s writing a new one. And he wants to bring you back to life. But first you have to let go of the things that are killing you.

 

– Excerpt from “The War” [last week’s Zeke lesson]

 

“What is killing you?” That is how our 2012-13 student ministry began – with a question. It is easy, much too easy, for us to point out the flaws in the youth generation, to finger their guilt, to write them off for their failings. What is much more difficult – and, I have found, much more constructive – is to guide them in reaching their own conclusions. And that begins by pointing the finger in the mirror. In the words of Jesus, “First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye” (Matthew 7:5, NLT). To be transparent, to confess our own humanity is, to the Millennial Generation, to earn respect.

 

Demonstrating the brand of candor that Jesus endorsed gives young people permission to be honest themselves. Teens are imitators; they do what they see us doing. Our concession to needing a Savior might very well coincide with their first step of faith. It empowers them to make their own confession. As Paul has it, “It is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved” (Romans 10:10, NLT; emphasis mine). Belief and coming clean are inseparable.

 

And so, before an audience of nearly 50 teens, I told my story – the insecurities, hopes, and missteps of my own teenage years. You could have heard a pin drop. The rambunctious, ADD generation was engaged. Trending forums term this “narrative evangelism,” but it is not about being trendy. To put it simply, it is about meeting young people where they are with the Gospel of Jesus.

 

Our vision at Zeke37 – to breathe life into an asphyxiated generation – might rightly be deemed revolutionary in its stance and scope. But then again, Jesus had radical leanings. It certainly wasn’t conventional to preach a message of forgiveness in an eye-for-an-eye society, nor was it orthodox for God-on-foot to mingle with sinners. Yet those drastic measures set in motion the righting of an upside-down world. So following his precedent, we reach out to the unchurched, the underchurched, and the overchurched, and we invite them to be honest. “What is killing you?” That is more than a question; it is an invitation to be resuscitated, to breathe in the Spirit of life and begin living.

 

Oh, how I await the day when I see what Ezekiel’s saw: “They all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army of them” (37:10, NLT). Friends, that day is, by the grace of God, drawing near…

something old, something new

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

– Hebrews 8:13, NIV

 

In an unguarded moment, a question crept unsolicited into my thoughts: What covenant am I living under? Which convention informs my day-to-day life and approach to ministry? Wisdom dictates that we give careful consideration to these questions, as our responses chart our course – either toward success or failure.

 

On the most basic level, Scripture is comprised of two units: the Old and New Testaments. These are structured as covenants, what we might call binding contracts. While they are two halves of a single book and counterparts of one canon, the old and new covenants are fundamentally very different.

 

Under the old, God remains distant and untouchable, as when he delivered the Ten Commandments: “I will come down upon Mount Sinai as all the people watch. Set boundary lines that the people may not pass. Warn them, ‘Be careful! Do not go up on the mountain or even touch its boundaries. Those who do will certainly die’” (Exodus 19:11-12, NLT). Under the new, he is Emmanuel, God with us: “We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands” (1 John 1:1, NLT).

 

The old takes the form of codified law, a mechanized system of dos and don’ts. Operating on the twin engines of obligation and fear, it creates adherents at best and, at worst, slaves compelled by the looming threat of “or else:” “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all these commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law” (Galatians 3:12, NLT). By contrast, the new inhabits the spacious greens of faith where grace offers what we cannot earn and forgiveness compensates for our failures. It is cultivated from passion and gratitude which spring out of the fertile soils of liberty. Here, we are beckoned by Jesus’ calls of “come to me,” invited to become his disciples and friends.

 

The old is a mirror which reflects our inherent need: “Why was the law given? It was given to show people how guilty they are” (Galatians 3:19, NLT). With its focus on sin and human unworthiness – i.e. the problem – it adopts a preventative view to stabilize against moral erosion. Altogether different is the new, which is a doorway into God’s presence: “Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God” (Hebrews 4:16, NLT). Its focus is redemption and restoration – i.e. the remedy – encouraging us to grow and mature, to become what God dreamed we would be, to move from glory to glory. The new, rather than fortifying the ground it holds, dares to go out and take the field.

 

The old is a humanistic model; the new embraces the mind of God.

 

Which defines us? Certainly we aspire to the latter, but does our default mode more closely resemble the former? Do we truly know the air of God’s presence? Is it duty or desire which drives us? Are we so consumed with preservation that expanding the Kingdom becomes secondary? I must ask myself these questions. Each of us must.

 

Transitioning between these models is no simple affair; it is involved and messy, requiring a complete overhaul. Paul made it abundantly clear that Christ is the sole foundation of orthodoxy: “No one can lay any other foundation than the one we already have – Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11, NLT). In other words, if our house is framed under the old covenant, a complete demolition is required, since the foundation of the old covenant is human effort. This is precisely why the Pharisees protested so vehemently to the teachings of Jesus; his message was so revolutionary that it left no room for partial measures or compromise or incremental change. Its call to displace an egocentric theology with a Christocentric one was urgent and unwavering.

 

Will we heed this call? God’s words echo down through the ages to us: “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses” (Deuteronomy 30:19, NLT). Friends, let us choose life and blessings. Let us choose Jesus.

God-in-a-box

Humanity has a nasty little habit of boxing up God. It is, I think, a natural repercussion of our finite state; despite our best attempts to comprehend his infinity, we can achieve a measure of success only by delineating boundaries which confine him. One of our many boxes is relegating God to only the “good” times in our lives. The logic goes something like this: God is good, he loves us, so when something bad happens in my life, God cannot be in it. Sadly, it is a lie that many of us find ourselves believing.

 

One of the surpassing beauties of Scripture is how it condescends to human frailty. Those themes which are most vital to us, those deepest truths, are repeated time and again to remind, persuade, and assure us. It is as if God, in composing the canon, annotated in bold letters: “Don’t miss this!” One such recurring statement is that God is always with his children. Just consider for a moment the myriad passages which express this in one form or another: “I will never fail you. I will never forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5); “We are hunted down, but God never abandons us” (2 Corinthians 4:9); “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20); “Even when I walk through the dark valley of death… you are close beside me” (Psalm 23:4); “I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there” (Psalm 139:7-8). The sentiment of these verses is not, “God is with us, but only when the sun shines and all is as it should be in the world.” No, they assure us of just the opposite: That he is a constant and devoted ally, not a fair-weather friend.

 

However, the reality of this – and its beauty – goes much deeper. God doesn’t simply tag along as we muddle through our sorrows. He gives them purpose. In this life, heartache and pain are inevitable; they are the aftershocks of a fateful day in a paradise lost. Yet such is the greatness of our God that he is able to fashion from our consequences something which works in our favor; as at creation, he breathes into our dust and ashes to create life. And so the little annoyances and the heartrending sorrows become the sandpaper which smoothes our rough edges, the kiln which burns away our dross.

 

Still, in those moments we wonder: Has God abandoned me? If we will but listen, he whispers to us in the deepest places of our soul, “I am with you even now.”

 

This is perhaps one of the most difficult lessons for young people to learn, made particularly so by our instantaneous, just-add-water culture. Society has conditioned us to respond to what we feel at this moment, right now. Hunger, boredom, and nearly any other appetite or emotion has a quick fix: Fast food, high-speed internet, instant messaging, movies on demand – the list is endless. These in and of themselves are not wrong, but their effect lingers well beyond their immediate reach. So when we feel sadness or grief or despair and there is no direct resolution, we instinctively assume the worst: God must have abandoned us.

 

This is why James, with such deep insight, wrote, “Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (1:2-3). The implication could not be clearer; one has no need of endurance if the outcome is immediate. Rather, it is the quality which sustains those who find themselves in a protracted affair. Restoration is a lifelong process, and God is in every moment. This life is a training grounds; he is preparing us for an existence beyond the confines of time, when we will join him in the sprawling expanses of eternity.

 

We, who have walked through the valley of shadows, who have caught glimpses of the Almighty by our side, have a most remarkable opportunity: To flesh out the words found in Scripture which assure us that God is indeed faithful. So let us sing and re-sing this anthem for generations to come: His love “never fails, never gives up, never runs out” on us. One less box...

the gospel on repeat

While preparing to launch my new blog, I brainstormed what I would call it. When I asked my wife for suggestions she offered, “The Broken Record.” With raised eyebrow, I looked at her warily. What exactly, I asked, was she implying? Nothing, she replied, she just liked the sound of it. Understandably, I was hesitant about the connotations of such a name. And in the end, I chose not to use it. But it did spark some thought.

 

Am I playing the gospel on repeat?

 

I once heard it said that in every classic work of literature, one can find interwoven elements of the gospel. While I am skeptical about the breadth of that statement, the point nonetheless has merit. One only need consider works like Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” in which one man forfeits his life so another might live; Eliot’s “Silas Marner,” whose embittered title character is transformed by the hope and redemption he finds in a little child; Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” wherein a man is host to an all-out war between impulses of good and evil; Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,” an exploration of the themes of liberty and bondage, justice and injustice, revenge and forgiveness; or Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” which testifies that the power of words can either inspire life or devastate entire nations.

 

One might rightly argue that “classics” such as these are defined by the quality of their writing. Yet their distinction is also found within the depth of their insight; the story they tell resonates with us because it speaks to our human condition. Is there any plot more epic, more stirring to the soul than the one in which right overcomes wrong, love triumphs, and hope, against all odds, thrives in that most desperate of circumstances? Restoration, mercy, sacrifice – these are the motifs which move us, because they are the trademarks of the Story.

 

Unfortunately, society has instilled within us an aversion to repetition (which is one of the supreme ironies of pop culture, by the way). We’re consumers of the latest fads, we follow trends, we become bored easily. Fashion, music, Hollywood, Madison Avenue – they all bow in reverence at the altar of innovation. But could it be that it is in constancy, not novelty, that meaning is found? Are we, in the endless pursuit of originality, robbing ourselves blind of the very thing we’re looking for? The soul – that which is eternal – can never be anchored by that which is, by its very nature, transient. Our hope cannot lie in being fashion forward or groundbreaking, no matter how much culture hails such adjectives.

 

Consider the words of the psalmist: "I will teach you hidden lessons from our past – stories we have heard and know, stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children but will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord… He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them – even the children not yet born – that they in turn might teach their children. So each generation can set its hope anew on God, remembering his glorious miracles and obeying his commands" (Psalm 78:2-7, NLT).

 

This is repetition at its finest. Not passing along stale leftovers and threadbare hand-me-downs, but imparting treasured stories that are as relevant today as the moment they were first spoken. Just as the classics were informed by gospel truths, so our lives should be graced by its golden threads. In so doing, we retell the story. And when that happens, we inspire the next generation to “set its hope anew on God.” Let us, dear friends, play the gospel on repeat for posterity’s sake.