What side are you on?

Well if you have not figured it out by my silence lately I have been overly pre-occupied with moving our family to Jefferson City. I have had many thoughts and ideas that I would love to share with you but I just don’t have the time to write them down but I have asked a friend of mine named Coleman Barbour. Coleman was a classmate of mine at Midwestern and a former co worker at Westside Family Church. Over the years Coleman and I have grown close and I have had the chance to see him grow into a man of God that honors God and his family. I pray you learn from him as I have over these last few years.

So recently I heard the kingdom of God compared to medieval earthly kingdoms and my mind went wild. See I am somewhat of sci-fi and fantasy geek so I was immediately lost to everything else that was said in that sermon, but I still think it was a good thing. As I began to flesh out the analogy in my mind I realized how deep and complex it is. After a while I realized that it didn’t stop and that it wasn’t really an analogy. God has chosen to reveal himself to us as King since the beginning.

In Genesis He sets himself up as king of the universe by speaking it into existence. The same way that a king says that a man will live or die, God says to the universe to exist or not exist. At the root of this idea is rule and power. God refers to Himself as the rejected king of Israel in I Samuel. I think that the idea of a king is something that we in the USA don’t really get, but imagine you are in a medieval style kingdom. In a kingdom model, people give allegiance to a king. Well imagine a kingdom full of usurpers. Everyone committed treason to the throne. See, a good king would normally sentence all the rebels to death and/or exile. So that is just what happened. Now imagine that this king, being good pursued you as a rebel, sentenced to death. His knights come riding on horses and you can only hide in shadows, stealing for your own survival from the king. You run and hide, but they catch you in an open field. You are taken to the castle and hanging from the wall is the corpse of the prince. You know the king is in an outrage at the death of his son. They throw you at the feet of the king and he draws his sword. He raises it to strike and you know it’s over when you feel the cold kiss of metal on you neck. Then, you feel it on the other side. “Rise” says the good king. You rise and he calls you a knight. He gives you lands and even more so he calls you child. “How?” you ask. You find out that your debt has been paid by another one’s death; the death of the Prince. You now have life and a royal inheritance. And all this because the Prince died in your place.

The stories are all true. The king is mighty and awful, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good. So given the two choices, inheritance or banishment, which do you choose? Where does your allegiance lie? Do you go willingly to the good and mighty king or do you live in fear and run from him forever? It’s all about where your allegiance lies.

Even nature sings

This world is messed up in magnitude, but there is a more amazing God who has invited us to know him, linking arms with us that we might be amplifiers for the beauty of Jesus to all peoples.

He is not only a global God — he’s a galatic God. He is bigger than anything we can imagine. We don’t have a clue, really, about who we are dealing with. The universe was one of God’s thoughts.

These are some of the thoughts that Pastor Louie Giglio shared at the Desiring God 2011 National Conference. His text was from Psalm 148: 1 – 5

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created.

In the message he helps up to remember that God tends to direct our attention to things greater than us to lead us to worship. We don’t understand the expanse of the worship that constantly surrounds the throne of God. I hope that is short clip from his message will help you to realize the heavens are already doing what God is calling us to do everyday. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB835wkz1Tc&feature=related]

(View the complete message here)

So you want to live together before marriage?

Over the last few years I have had the distinct privilege of performing multiple weddings, but before that process begins I ask the each couple does some “pre-marital” sessions with me to prepare them for what lies ahead. Between my pre-marital sessions and working in a “secular” workplace (though I do not believe there is a divide between sacred and secular, but I digress) I find that both “Christians” and non- Christians are moving in for a myriad of reasons.

Financial/ our current economy
Sexual (though unstated if you are “Christian”)
Simple try out (i.e. test drive marriage before purchase) and many more.

In these sessions we talk about the Biblical perspective of cohabitation, and (not surprisingly) I see and hear that sliding into cohabitation is more normal than not. Whatever the reasons there has been a substantial increase on cohabitation according to a recent New York Times article,

Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million. The majority of young adults in their 20s will live with a romantic partner at least once, and more than half of all marriages will be preceded by cohabitation. (emphasis added)

The article goes on to state that,

…nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, “You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along.” About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.

But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.

I have to admit, it is a little frustrating that we as pastors are constantly derided for giving people “antiquated” information about sex, relationships, and life in general all because our source of truth happens to be the Bible. Yet, once again God turns out to be smarter than all of us, imagine that. As a society our thoughts on certain subjects, especially revolving around sex, are “evolving” but Biblical truth does not. Continually, as research and science are compiled the findings come back around to agreeing with those time honored truths.

I do not exactly know where you stand on this subject, obviously I have my opinions tempered by the truth of the Bible. I will admit that amongst the pressures of todays society it is not easy adhere to Biblical truth but an infinite God instructed us for His glory and our joy versus finite man coming up with our “truth” and eventually coming to His conclusions.

I would love to know your thoughts below.

Read the complete NY Times article here.

may his days be few

I don’t talk a lot about politics on my blog or in my life. Honestly, I am not a fan of either political party, they both seriously get on my nerves whenever I think about them. Please don’t get me wrong, just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t care about politics. I just choose not to obsess over it, especially in this phase our nations history because I believe there are much more pressing things to deal with.

Politics is important to me because it involves policies and policies, ultimately, impact people. We have no choice: we must be engaged in our civic responsibilities and affairs.

Let me be clear, I am a staunch independent, I have voted on both sides of the aisle. When it comes to political parties I try to urge people to not be fooled, swayed and seduced by the powers to be. That being said I was reminded of a conversation I had with a friend over coffee a few months back. As we sat across from each other he was telling me of his upcoming missions trip to a undisclosed place we began to talk about things that we were praying for in our lives and how we could be praying for each other. He revealed that he was recently struggling with the dialogue of Christians towards our president. He asked me this question:

I wonder what would happen if we prayed for the President just as much as we complain and blame him for all our problems?

This conversation was months ago but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I honestly can not fathom the burden and weight of his job and the ‘calling’ of the Presidency. In many ways, we ought to commend the courage of all those who step into leadership – on any level – including but not limited to the highest level. We can criticize all we want about our current presidential candidates, but we must acknowledge them for their courage to be in such vulnerable positions.

You see, it doesn’t matter what your political leanings, affiliations, and affections may be. I’m always amazed by those who would quote 1 Timothy 2:1-4 as an encouragement to pray for our leaders but we hesitate when it’s someone we disagree with and instead start quoting Psalm 109:8

“May his days be few; and let another take his office.”

(Side note: I honestly might scream the next time I see this out of context bumper sticker in reference to our president, but I digress.)

Here is what I know, President Barack Obama is:

a husband
a daddy
our President
proclaimed Christian (only God knows his heart)
a representative of a people group (African Americans)
[arguably] the most influential and powerful man on earth
a human

You may agree or disagree with his policies and/or decisions. You may be a Republican, Democrat, Tea Party or Coffee Party, but it doesn’t matter. The next time you find yourself complaining about him or preparing to slam a policy please lift a prayer for him. His marriage, his daughters, family, strength, conviction, courage, wisdom, safety, and peace.

When life is not fair

A few weeks ago I once again received a call to come back to Park Hill Baptist Church. This church asked me to fill in the pulpit again as they continued the search for an Interim Pastor and eventually a new Senior Pastor. Much like last time I found myself not feeling comfortable with any of the subjects that came to mind for to preach. You see, for me, if I am going into an environment I have never been to before, and possibly will not return to, I try to prayerfully seek a subject that the Spirit leads me to say, and this time it was a doozy. Once again, I traveled back to my pastoral study (aka BlackDog Coffeehouse) and prayed until the Father answered. This sermon was for me and as I soon found out for many people in the attending audience. I pray that it is half of the blessing it was to me in preparing it. Maybe this will give you an idea of where I am going with this sermon:

“Life is not fair. Good people have to die early. There are people that waste money like water, and there are other people who struggle to pay for their parents hospital bills. There are people that spend thousands of dollars on a vacation, and there are other people working three jobs to make ends meet. The funny part is people that spent thousands of dollars on vacation wouldn’t pay for their children’s tuition, and people that working three jobs wants to pay for their children’s tuition. How sad…Life is not fair. And it never will be. What’s the point of life anyway? See the injustice and then you die, painfully.”

Below you will find both audio and video versions of the sermon “Patience in the fires of life” (Malachi 2:17 – 3:7a). Please enjoy!

Audio:

[audio https://somajc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/patience-in-the-fires-of-life-malachi-2_17-3_7a.mp3]

Video:

Video: Poor audio quality

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/38177824]

Almost (saved) by Ezekiel Azonwu

Ezekiel Azonwu is a resident poet at P4CM which is a ministry looking to Intentionally Impact the world for Christ. They build you up spiritually and teach Biblical subjects in a creative way that can be understood by all. They constantly deliver powerful and compelling word of mouth and this piece does not disappoint. Throughout the poem half of me was smiling and nodding my head, the other half was wincing in pain while evaluating my own life. In the end our enemy does not care if you look right on the outside to the rest of the world, or about your church attendance, he is looking to destroy you by letting you be [well]…. almost.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqfU3OFNZA0]

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