A Marathon Bombing, the Broken World, and Our Maranatha Hope

After yesterdays senseless tragedy I once again found myself trying to put into words what my heart was feeling, there seems to be a lot of that latel y. Once again, the trolls came out of the wood work to claim conspiracy, Obama, our lack of repentance, economic faculties, etc. The truth is so much more simple than any of us want it to be, creation is broken. While writing a friend of mine sent me this article by Ed Stetzer and instead of trying to outsmart everyone else I just commend this one to you.

Today is another sad day– another tragedy. It will likely not be the last, regrettably. On days like these, commentators will ask “where was God in this?” or “why would God let something like this happen?” There are no easy answers to those questions. And while we may not be offered answers, we are offered hope and a promise in the midst of the brokenness.

Look around. Our world is broken. I’m not talking about the “world” in terms of nature (although creation, too, bears the marks of sin’s blemish and decay). I’m talking about the “world” comprised of the people, structures, and systems that make up society– the moral patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that result in things like unfair business practices, racism, extreme poverty, dishonest government, dirty politics, family breakdown, cheating, stealing, oppression of the weak, and so many other distressors and defilers.

Of course, tragedy is daily living in much of the world. Churches are bombed regularly in Nigeria; sexual violence trafficking is real and growing, and poverty is deep and pervasive. The world is broken. Sinfulness impacts everything.

Yet, we are reminded on days like this, our hope is in a new kingdom.

A kingdom reigned by a returning King.

A kingdom with no more terrorist threats or bombings. No more thoughts of death to keep us up at night.

How could there be, since there won’t be any more “night” to experience– absolutely nothing to make us think back on a life that was so regularly troubled by fear, anger, bitterness, anxiety, and lingering doubts? They’re all gone. All the time.

Keep all of this in mind.

Read about it and meditate on it often.

The Kingdom has come because the King has come, but it is not yet fully here. That is why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Because the kingdom is not yet fully here and complete– and the world is not yet, well, right.

So, we remember the “not yet” reality we are here to model and live. We live as agents of God’s kingdom, perhaps some ministering today in Boston, and certainly praying where we are.

The current state of life on this planet sure has a lot of brokenness. You’re right to be dissatisfied with it. But it’s not enough for Christians merely to recognize that the world isn’t what it ought to be and that people are suffering in ways they shouldn’t have to suffer. Our sorrow and indignation must lead us into action that subverts the brokenness that is real and present right now. We work to make this world more as God would intend it to be– with justice, peace, and more.

So we pray for His Kingdom to come, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Yet, it does not fully come until Jesus returns to set all things right. We pray for that day to come soon, particularly on days of tragedy.

There is just one use in the New Testament of the Aramaic word phrase, “Maranatha. Paul writes, “Maranatha that is, Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Most translate it as a cry for King Jesus to come soon. Yet, that one word has become a cry for Christians in pain, persecution, and much more.

This marathon tragedy drives us again to our Maranatha cry– “come quickly, Lord” and set things right.

In the meantime, may we live as agents of your kingdom– showing and sharing the love of Jesus– to a broken and lost world. But, days like these make us long for that Day, where the kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of our God and King.

We pray “maranatha” today– and rightly so.

O death, where is your sting?

This last week has been a very interesting one in regards to life and death. I have watched a young mother pass on to glory leaving behind a newly single father and 2 young children (4 and 1). This one particularly hit home as we tried to explain to our 4 yr. old what happened to her friends mother. Additionally, that same husband lost his father not 24 hrs before. Though we as a church family grieve for and with him I will not even try to act as if i understand what pain he is experiencing. It seemed as if everywhere I looked there was death

My best friend’s Grandmother
Margaret Thatcher
Pastor Rick and Kay Warren’s son committed suicide
and many more…

This week in funerals and Memorial services all over the world pastors and friends will say:

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” – 1 Corinthians 15:55 (Hosea 13:14)

Like me we may be a bit confused by this reference but I think that there are a few few answers:

Death’s [temporary] victory and [momentary] sting is evident in this moment, but, eternity is a reality. Everyone is going to die and spend eternity somewhere and there is amazing peace when you know that someone you loved has been made new and is in the presence of Christ. and the victory and sting of death are gone.
Everyone grieves differently and grief is a very natural and perfectly acceptable thing for us as humans to feel. However, as there is a season for everything we cannot allow the death of someone we love to rob me of the life that we have left. We will always feel a deep sense of loss in regards to our loved one but grief is not a place for me to stay but rather a season I must go through Also, know and understand there IS joy on the other side. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)
If Romans 8:26 – 30 is true even when I don’t feel it then we must rest in our Father’s will. I have said before and I will say it again, “maturity in a believer is marked by our choice to trust what God’s Word says rather than the way we feel.” Doing this is not always the easiest thing but the FACTS of God’s Word are way [much] more reliable than my feelings. This has been a struggle for me when I have lost loved ones but at the end of the day I know God is still God and God is still good.
Relationships with other people should never be taken for granted. We should never assume that people know how we feel about them and if there is someone in you love in your life you should do all that you can do to make that relationship right. You may need to stop reading right now and call someone who just came to your mind. Your life is too short to live with bitterness and regret.
Community: Family (immediate and extended), friends, a local church. This world will crush someone who tries to face it alone and one of the Bible’s core values is simple, we cannot do life alone. This will never become more evident than when you lose someone you love and are desperate.

These are only a few of my thoughts on death and I’m sure throughout the week I might add others but I would love to know what you think/ experience when you come face to face with death.

Lenten reflections

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When I was a kid Lent was so simple, we never celebrated it. Actually, I used it as an occasion to torture the Catholics and other high church weirdos in my school. Every year they gave up sweets and got a break on Sundays, honestly it seemed simple and rather silly. Seriously, didn’t Jesus give up so much more when He was in the wilderness for 40 days and nights being tempted by our enemy yet not succumbing? Years later I meant the love of my life and as I pursued her I found out something rather odd, she observed Lent. This sweet Baptist women followed a fast that many people in her church merely dismiss as sophistry. I will not say that I picked up the practice for the most holy of reasons (young men will do anything to impress a women, and I am not exempt from this fact), but as I did I decided to begin researching the history of this season and this is what I came across:

The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer, through prayer, penitence, alms-giving and self-denial, for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Christ (Easter).

In our house we yearly practice this fast as a reflective and prayerful act to prepare our heart, soul/mind, and body for Easter. We concluded the fast with a Seder [meal] (pictured above) to reflect on three (3) important Seders:

Israel’s original Seder conducted in Egypt as they prepared to experiences the mighty deliverance of God (Exodus)
Our Messiah’s Seder which He shared with His disciples just prior to His execution and sacrifice nearly 2000 years ago
Our Seder which is conducted in our home as is we ourselves are actually a part of the original experience and to continually remember the willing sacrifice of our Savior, that released us from slavery to sin into the Freedom to follow and worship Him.

So this year we participated in the Daniel Fast. While searching on what to give up for Lent a friend of ours, Angie Lomas mentioned that she was thinking of doing this fast along with a program called Couch to 5k or C25k (this is the actual program). Immediately, I latched on to the idea and told Heather who has also seen the same post. The Daniel fast basically whittles you down to a few things to eat (depending on where you look and how literal you take His fast from scripture.

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.” Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables. Daniel 1:8-16, ESV

The fast was challenging on so many fronts but we endured and made it. We were praying for many things and God gave us clarity on some and left us in the dark on the others. A few of the things were:

Next steps after my residency at Concord has ended (it has almost been a year already and we have to begin thinking in that direction)
Clarity in my calling (i.e. what type of church)
Many personal things
Complete the C25K program

In the end the Father is always faithful to us and this time once again brought about some frank discussion and drew us closer together. Additionally, it was a great teaching point for my children to see another spiritual discipline exhibited by their parents. The reason I wanted to write this is to simply reflect on the goodness and gracious of our Father and the sustaining power of His Spirit in the Christian’s life. We are not super saints at all, we are just beggars trying to show other beggars where the bread is. Next time you should join us on the journey, I promise you wont regret it.

What would you die for?

By “give my life for,” I mean two things. First, I give my life “for” them by giving my life to them. The life that I now have the privilege of living, I endeavor to invest in these things. That investment amounts to a slow dying for. Second, I pray the Lord would strengthen me in any moment where I might be called upon to give my life “for” these things by dying more quickly, perhaps violently for them. In those two senses of the phrase, here are eight things I would give my life for:

God: The revelation of God as the only God, eternally Triune in nature and yet one, deserving all glory, honor, praise, and submission from His creation (Ex. 15:11; John 10:30; Acts 5:3-4).
Scripture: The Bible as the inerrant, infallible, inspired, authoritative, sufficient, nourishing, life-giving word of God (Rev. 1:9).
Jesus (okay I admit, this is a little redundant) : Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, fully God and fully man, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the exact representation of God’s being and the radiance of His glory, apart from whom there is no salvation (Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3; John 3:16).
The Gospel: The good news that sinful man is saved from the justly deserved, holy, eternal wrath of God by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, who in His perfect life and His substitutionary, penal atonement provides both our righteousness before God and satisfaction to God’s wrath, and to whom we are forever united by faith unto eternal life (Rom. 3:21-26).
Missions: The call and work of going to all the world to make disciples of all nations and to teach them to observe everything Jesus commanded so that the glory, honor, praise, and worship of God through Christ would fill the earth and so that the joy, comfort, salvation, and hope of all peoples would overflow in Christ (Matt. 28:18-20; 2 Cor. 11:23-29).
Discipleship (which includes Evangelism): My own personal profession of faith in and loyalty to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God the Son, my Lord and Master, to whom I owe everything, for and in whom I live, breathe and have my being, and Who lives in me, completing the work He began until the day of His return, who will be perfectly and now is imperfectly my greatest and highest Delight and Satisfaction (Luke 9:23-26; Gal. 2:20; Acts 17:28; Phil. 1:6; Ps. 17:15).
My Family (surprised they aren’t higher?): The good thing and obtained favor of the Lord, my wife, who satisfies me with her love and comforts me with her presence, who is constant encouragement and whose virtue has made me known among the elders at the city gate, with whom I am an heir to life and a partner in the gospel of our Lord, and the arrows in our quiver, entrusted to us to raise as a godly offspring to the Lord, not to provoke but to bring up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, through whom we have no greater joy than to see them walking in the truth, who we pray represent one in what will be generations of godly Nelsons living for the Lord (Prov. 18:22; 5:18-19; Prov. 31; Ps. 128; Mal. 2:15; 2 John 4; 2 Tim. 1:5).
The Church: Those bought by the blood of Christ, granted eternal life and the gift of the Holy Spirit, adopted into the family of God, joined together by covenant love, journeying as pilgrims to the Heavenly City, entrusted by God’s grace into mutual care and leadership to deliver as a chaste bride awaiting her groom (John 10:10-15;Col. 1:28-29; Rev. 21).

These are just the 8 I came up with off of the cuff while borrowing so language that is much better than mine. Do you think that I missed any? Let me know below in the comments.

Politics and the Debt Limit

I am not really a person who speaks about politics much but this was brilliantly done. Check this out…

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A dead spot in the room

As a pastor I find my self drawn to sit towards the front of every church service I’m in. In fact, this past Sunday I noticed something rather curious. Usually, I sit on the 3rd or 4th row with my wife. I love being able to worship with her and I find that it’s is a valuable part of our relationship together. The weeks that I preach I am left to attend a service (usually the 2nd) by myself, so I end up on the front row. These are [supposedly] the best seats in the house, right?

You would think so, but it turns out that the way the speakers are positioned off of the ceiling, the sound waves shoot right past those of us on the front row. This creates an annoying dead spot making certain parts of the mix (especially the lyrics) almost inaudible until about the fourth row back my normal seats. Funny huh? The people who are closest to the action have the hardest time hearing the lyrics.

Those of us who are on the front row of what God is doing (Pastors, Deacons, volunteers, etc) are in the greatest danger of having the sound waves shoot right over our heads. That is we are so close to the action that we lose a sense of wonder and gratitude. We see God do remarkable things day in and day out and we no longer hear the rumble and feel the vibrations of the workings of the Spirit. Church leaders can often find ourselves with the best seats in the house, straining to hear the lyrics, in the dead spot on the front row. Honestly, I find myself in this position more that I care to admit, straining to hear the Father while sitting closest to the action. I don’t know the solution but I know that the first step is identifying the problem so I would love your thoughts.