Benediction

The Beginning

Two books of the Bible begin with the same three words: In the beginning.

The Book of Genesis says, "In the beginning God created..." The very first thing we learn about God is that he creates. That is a hint at what it means for us to be created in his image.

The Apostle John writes, "In the beginning was the Word..." John is clearly referring us back to Genesis. In fact, the Word was the means by which God created: "And God said, 'Let there be light.' And it was so." God spoke and light happened. God speaks into our lives and stuff happens.

Of course, John is also referring to Jesus, the living Word of God. I find the principle that when we want to connect with God and his creative activity in this world, we will do it through the Word--through Jesus and through Scripture.

The process of memorizing passages of scripture has been the strongest catalyst to my spiritual growth. I have found that memorizing passages of scripture puts in my mind the mind of the Author. It writes God's Word into my heart.

I decided recently that my next passage of scripture to memorize will be Genesis 1-3. This is the seminal passage of the Bible. If you don't get these three chapters, you'll never understand the story of God. These three chapters contain the foundations for a world view that encompasses God's view of the world. Genesis addresses, in poetic fashion, the work of the Creator and presents a theology of our stewardship of the earth. It peeks at the Trinity. Genesis describes the nature of male and female and tells the heart and purpose of marriage. Genesis tells of the tragedy of sin and the possibility of redemption. It is the story of God in relation to humanity in three quick movements.

So that's my next personal endeavor to place the heart of God into my heart. I hope to own it by Christmas. I'll let you know how it goes.

What's your next step?

Today at Lakeside

Today was a good day.

Once a month the Lakeside Church staff gets together for what we call chapel. We eat together. (Today was waffles and bacon...and fruit. Lipitor here I come.) Sometimes we sing. We pray. Often I will tell what I'm learning in my own spiritual journey.

Today we heard from Doug Roush. Doug is Lakeside's Director of High School Ministry, known as Encounter. He is completing his third year on our team and he's doing an outstanding job of leading high school students as followers of Jesus. I interviewed Doug in front of the staff today in order to affirm him in his call to the ministry. The state calls it licensing. I call it encouraging.

Doug is 27 years old. He is a learner. I once told Doug he didn't listen enough; he was too quick to speak. He listened to that advice. He has become a humble, learning leader.

He taught today about the brothers of Jesus. He talked about the struggles James might have had in following his older brother. Yet James believed. Doug cited James' belief in Jesus as one of the primary reasons for his own belief. I was moved by his teaching. Think about it: Jesus died for us...and for his brother. Eventually James repaid the bill when he was martyred for his faith in his brother Jesus.

That was a good day. But it wasn't over.

After chapel I met with Carl Rettinger. Carl leads Lakeside's Middle School Ministry. He sits down in my office and says, "I love my job."

I'm thinking, "Nuh uh! Nobody loves middle schoolers." (Sorry MSM kids. I love you; I'm just reporting the stereotype.) 

Carl does love his job and he is doing it well. Here is a mature, well-grounded husband and dad who is giving his heart and soul to lead middle school students to love Jesus. There is hope in this world!

Today was a good day.

The Importance of Seeing God

I walked into a workshop on worship last weekend at Lakeside Church and lost my breath. Gabriel Wilson, Lakeside's Director of Worship Arts, was presenting the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of Worship. As I walked in he was reading this passage:

[God] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 34:6-7).

I love this statement of God's character. It honestly takes my breath away. God must like it too, because he includes it no less than eight times in the Bible. It may be the single most common description of God.

What Moses heard that day was a recital of the beauty and balance of God's heart in his relationships with us. It is a song of grace and truth. It is a story of mercy and judgment.

I find that we human beings often land on one side or the other of God's character. Some of us love the side of mercy and grace. Perhaps that's because we know how much we need it. We know if it were not for God's compassion, we would not survive--not in this world and not in the one to come.

Or maybe we just never liked rules in the first place, so mercy seems more important than judgment.

On the other hand, some of us seem to delight in the judgment of God. Perhaps that's because we see the injustices in this world. We know first-hand how cruel the world can be. And we know that judgment doesn't always come soon enough to bring correction. So we love the idea that God will eventually judge, and the wrongs of this world will be righted.

Or maybe we're just rule-keepers and can't tolerate the rule-breaking of others. 

If we land off-balance on either side, we have missed God's heart. God proclaims loud and clear his character: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. He maintains love and forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin. That means he is ready to bring grace to everyone. Hallelujah! I have hope.

However, God also declares his intention to punish the guilty. In some way this judgment even passes down to the children and grandchildren. Perhaps this generational judgment happens because generational sins get passed down--alcoholics beget alcoholics, abusers beget abusers, liars beget liars. Sin produces like-minded sin in the next generation. At any rate, God is the Judge. It is his character and his prerogative. Whoa! I have fear.

In this description, God calls me forward. He motivates me, both through hope and through fear.

Of course, followers of Jesus will recognize this description of God from the Gospel of John. In different words, John describes the same character of God as it was displayed in Jesus:

We have seen his glory, the glory [character] of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

He Must Increase

I ate lunch recently with a good friend. He is a pastor. We talked about church. The questions: Why do some churches grow while others don't? How does a pastor handle it if another church in town grows at a faster pace? (What, you didn't think pastors feel these things?)

The question of church growth always makes me wonder. I believe God is sovereign. He gets to decide how his kingdom grows and at what pace and in what place. But humanity is involved in the equation. Human leaders influence growth and movement. Or why do we have leaders?

My friend reminded me of John 3. After Jesus' famous encounter with Nicodemus comes another story. It seems John the Baptist and Jesus are both baptizing people in the Jordan River. But John is told that Jesus is baptizing more people. In fact, everyone is going to Jesus. The stream of people dried up for John.

How is John to handle that? I mean, he is known as The Baptist! He should be baptizing more people. Maybe Jesus should find a different river.

Here is John's response: "A person can receive only what is given him from heaven... He [Jesus] must increase; I must decrease" (John 3:27, 30).

I can receive only what is given me from heaven. Jesus must increase; I must decrease.

Talk about that over lunch...

Leadership Summit Weekend at Lakeside

This weekend at Lakeside Church, we're going to hear from Harvey Carey, Pastor of Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit. Pastor Carey was one of the speakers at the Global Leadership Summit last summer. His passionate talk called us to move out of the huddle and into the game.

I have seldom been so challenged and inspired to move forward in my spiritual life as from Pastor Carey.

I hope you'll join us at one of our five worship experiences this weekend at Lakeside: 4:30 or 6:30 p.m. Saturday, or 9:00, 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.

Get in the game.

Understand Before Disagreeing

President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to be the newest member of the Supreme Court. Three thoughts:

1)    Politicians, pundits and talk show hosts have already staked out their positions for or against her nomination, largely along the lines of their political party.

2)    I do not know enough about her yet to have an informed opinion. That is what the Senate confirmation process is about.

3)    But I do like this: When the president put forward her nomination, he declared that Kagan is "one who seeks to understand an argument before deciding whether to disagree."

That's one good application of "love your enemies."

How do you love your enemies?

Simple

Jesus is known as the Word. I like that. John wrote, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus was the word of God in the flesh. He also spoke the words of God. I wonder how simply he communicated.

I know a man who is brilliant. He thinks in paragraphs. He communicates with meticulous care. Scholarly precision defines him. But I have to study everything he writes. Hard. I can't just read it and get it. I have to gnaw on it until the verbs get separated from the adverbs and the adjectives are correctly describing the appropriate nouns. Sometimes it's tough chewing.

I know another man who once started a sermon in which his five-minute introduction consisted entirely of one-syllable words. That's really simple language. And really hard to do. (That last sentence only had five words and still one had two syllables.) You can't even say syllables without passing the three-syllable threshold!

Jesus communicated the amazing truths of God's heart in simple ways. Jesus' style of speech was so simple and so engaging that the common people wanted to hear him. Luke says, "All the people would get up early in the morning to come to Him in the temple to listen to Him" (Luke 21:38). They got out of bed early just to listen to Jesus.

I want to make the gospel as simple as Jesus did. Jesus came into this world so the common person would understand the love of God. Not everybody always liked what he said. But they loved to listen to him.

May our communication of the gospel be that good.

The Moms in My Life

My Mom was 23 years old when she gave me life. She already had one son, two years older than I. Soon I was followed by another brother, and then, finally, a sister. Mom had four kids before she turned 30, which is probably not that uncommon even now. What seems uncommon was Mom's wisdom. How did she get so smart while still in her twenties.

Mom always knew the right thing to do. Did you scrape your knee? This will help. Did you make an error at shortstop? This will help. Did you disobey Dad's or Mom's instructions? This will hurt...but eventually it will help.

I used to marvel that when Mom drove us kids somewhere (yes, mothers were running taxi services even then), she always knew where to go. Turn left here. Right at this corner. Right into the parking lot. Wow, we're here! Didn't she ever forget where she was going?

As time went by, those directional gifts probably got challenged often. Teenagers don't take directions so easily. And skinned knees would have been a welcome relief to someone dealing with the pains of four adolescents. But Mom kept life moving forward in a good direction.

Today Mom's kids are parents to their own young adult children. We've already passed most of the knee-scraping years. My brothers and sister turned out well. I think Mom is proud. And I'm proud of you, Mom. Way to go.

***

Now I watch the mother of my own children. She has this uncommon wisdom. She always knew the right thing to do as our kids were growing. I learned so much about good parenting from her. Frankly, she was better at it than I. I kept watching her for clues and cues. Turn left here. Right at this corner. I'm still watching. Still learning.

We're not done parenting yet. I thought that road would end when the kids reached the twenties. It didn't. It is different kind of parenting now. It takes a lot more wisdom. The scrapes are bigger. The judgment calls are harder. And through it all, I watch my wife, the mother of my children, moving life forward in a good direction. I'm proud of my kids. Really proud. And I'm proud of you, Donna. Way to go.

***

This weekend at Lakeside, Donna will present the message with me. I hope you'll be there. This will help.

Excellence in Ministry

One of the Operational Values of Lakeside Church is excellence. We believe that we honor God by giving him our best: our best efforts, our best gifts, our best thoughts and passions.

The value is not perfection. Perfection in human pursuits is a holey bucket. It is frustrating to the perfectionist and to everyone around him or her. When Jesus said, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect," he was seeking to show us our desperate need for grace. If perfection is required, we're out; unless, of course, we have a redeemer.

Excellence, on the other hand, inspires. It is worthy of our aspirations. When a sermon is delivered with excellence, people are not distracted by the preacher, but are free to be transformed by the message preached, along with the preacher. When a Kidsfest teacher teaches with excellence, the structure of the lesson fades into the background as children learn to love and follow Jesus.

Excellence requires effort. Nobody falls into patterns of excellence. Those people who make their jobs look easy have worked hard for that effect.

In your life as a follower of Jesus today, where is the excellence? In your pursuit of scripture or prayer, where is the excellence? In your leadership of a small group, where is your excellence? In serving the poor, how do you excel?

When you give it your best, it will not save you. But your excellence will honor the Lord, and he may use it to bless others.

Twice as Much

Mark Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that scare me; it's the parts I do understand." Actually, both parts scare me a little.

Do you ever avoid the scary passages of the Bible? Matthew 23 has some scary thoughts. Jesus is announcing woes on the religious leaders of his generation. When Jesus says, "Woe is you," I think I'd better pay attention.

Matthew 23:15 contains one of those woes. Jesus says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."

I know Jesus was talking to the Pharisees. I know those guys were legalistic snobs with long noses down which they looked at others. I know hypocrisy characterized their lives and teachings. But I wonder if Jesus doesn't look at us the same way, at least sometimes?

I'd go a long ways to make a single "convert." Would my life and teachings make him a son of hell? Twice the son of hell I am?

The point to reflect on is the arrogance of our own confidence. Certainly the Pharisees believed in their own righteousness and the accuracy of their teachings. Yet they were off track. Jesus' followers today often display a spiritual self-confidence equal to that of the Pharisees. If we are true to Jesus' warning, at the least we will humble ourselves enough to ask: Could I be wrong?

Now, for the record, I believe strongly in what I teach. And because I believe all of it, including the warnings of Jesus, I present myself and my teachings humbly to him and to you. Or woe is me.