Archives for April 2017

Moving Forward Together on Unsure Footing

In the summer of 2011, I had the privilege of serving on a mission trip in Honduras.  After a week of service, the long-term missionaries scheduled a day for our team to explore the rain forest just outside of the town of La Ceiba.  We enjoyed a hike rife with potential dangers: a tree, equipped with poisonous spikes lining much of the hilly trek; a rickety bridge with broken planks; and a little scorpion most of our team stepped over before one team member noticed it standing in the middle of the path, looking for a foot to strike.  But the reward for working together to get through the beautiful, uncertain, treacherous path was a breathtaking waterfall where we would stop for lunch.

Once we made it to the lunch spot, Mike, the mission-team leader suggested that we make our way over a series of jagged and slippery rocks to the pool formed at the base of the waterfall.  We soon discovered our own limitations.  The bare feet on slippery rocks make for unsure footing.  Mike, who has done this dozens of times patiently worked along with the more stable-footed of our team members to assist each of us, one-by-one, over the rocks.  At one point, one of our team members froze in fear, terrified that the next step could lead to a journey out of the rainforest by stretcher.  “Just grab my hand.  You can do this,” encouraged Mike, gently bearing the weight of this team member so everyone could get through to experience the beauty of God’s work first-hand.

As I consider the next several weeks together at Calvary, prayerfully investigating the possibility of investing in the renovation and expansion of our current facility in order to bring glory to our God in this generation and the next by making disciples where we have been planted, I have reflected on this journey through the rainforest.  For some, the next several weeks might feel like a journey of unsure footing – one moment full of excitement about future possibilities, and the next, the sense of a rush of fear, not knowing how to move forward without pain.  How do we move forward together, when some can bound through the rocks with no thought to the dangers ahead and others are tempted to simply stand, frozen in fear?

Mike’s actions illustrate well, the posture the Scriptures prescribe for moving together on unsure footing.  The Apostle Paul, puts it this way, “I…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility, and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace” (Eph. 4:1-3).

In other words, we must first remember what we already have been given by Jesus.  The unity we have in the Spirit of God is not first and foremost something we achieve, but it’s a reality achieved for us by Jesus.  We are to be unified, because Unity in the Spirit is the very identity of the church.  We must be eager to maintain this unity that belongs to us, but what does that look like?  This unity looks like the following postures:

#1 –  Humility, meaning we consider the ideas and concerns of others in our church family, knowing that we do not have all the answers, and we need the gifts and weaknesses of everyone…

#2 – Gentleness, meaning we encourage each other in the midst of fears and differences of opinion, not disparaging the thoughts or contributions of others, but seeking ways to build up…

#3 – Patience, meaning we are slow to speak and quick to listen without expectation that everyone will share our perspective, knowing that we have a God who is infinitely patient with us all…

#4 – Bearing with One Another In Love, meaning we assume the best in one another and sometimes offer a listening ear or a shoulder on which to cry, while reminding one another to keep looking up and moving forward with a hand to hold.

May the Spirit of God enable us to maintain the strength in these postures of unity, so that we might move forward together in the midst of unsure footing.

When Knowing the Answer Is Not Enough

We’ve all known that student in class.  You know, the one who has all the answers any time a question is asked.  Hand raised, answer given, but often in reality, the person is completely unmoved and unchanged by the information so readily available to the mind.

As a pastor, one of the greatest struggles I experience is my inherent inability to make someone take the information they know intellectually and drive it deeply into their bones in a way that transforms.  This is simultaneously one of the most challenging, yet liberating aspects of my role as pastor.  Challenging, because I so desperately desire to see people changed and set free by the gospel.  Liberating, because I’m driven to my knees again and again, to confess to God that I am not the Holy Spirit, and to plead with Him to do what only He can do.

This week, a video from my home-town, Huntington, WV television news station made the rounds on Facebook, illustrating the God-shaped gap between what we know and the transformation that only He by His Spirit can bring into one’s life.

Tim Irr, the anchor of WSAZ-TV was at the Huntington police station, interviewing a woman who had been arrested that night as part of a prostitution sting in that city.  She desperately wanted to share her story on the air, expressing remorse to her family and offering a warning to others who would listen.  The anchor asked in multiple ways whether she had any hope for the future and what it would take for her to walk away from a life of addiction and prostitution.  Her answer broke my heart.  “I’m an addict,” she said resignedly.  “There is something broken in me, and I don’t think it can be fixed.”  The anchor, clearly displaying his own humanity did not want her to settle for that answer.

“What’s it going to take for you to stop?” he asked with hopeful compassion.  And that’s when the disconnect became tragically clear.

“The only way to get sober and stay sober is Christ,” she said.  “Belief in Jesus will save you.”  Irr had a little hope now – a breakthrough, perhaps.  After confirming she’d witnessed Christ’s transforming work in others, this mother of two teens said in a hopeless tone, “I don’t want to walk that life.  Apparently, I chose the wrong road.  I believe, but I don’t want to live the right life.”

What hope is there for this woman, living life with the knowledge of God’s transforming power in Christ, but unconvinced that it is for her?

Only a heart softened by the love and grace of Jesus, a heart that knows not only what Christ has done for others, but that it’s for “me” can be transformed to live for God, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit alone.

In Romans 8:1, the Apostle Paul explains that for all who belong to Jesus, they are no longer condemned, but instead, “the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).  It’s only when we see that by Christ’s finished work, we are no longer condemned that we are set fee by God’s power to have that which we know driven deep into our hearts to live for Him.  The apostle explains it this way:  “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6-7).

My prayer this week has been that God would give this woman and all of us the grace not only to know, but to be set free by His Spirit to live for Him!

Missing and Moving the Mark: The Recipe for Growing Guilt

Over the weekend, David Brooks wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times, exploring the strange dimension of guilt in a largely amoral society.  Brooks postulates that in a society bereft of absolutes, guilt remains, because “society has become a free-form demolition derby of moral confrontation.”  There is much wisdom and insight in Brooks’ article, but this has caused me to reflect on the nature of sin and what it means to live in God’s world, even if we fail to acknowledge it.

Sin in the Scriptures is a descriptive word from the world of archery.  It literally means to “miss the mark,” and theologically it is to miss the bullseye of God’s standards.  But in order to deal with the guilt and shame of sin, one of the things we have done is simply move the mark.  How?  We shoot the arrows of our own desires and designs, which often change day-to-day, week-to-week, and year-to-year.  Once the arrow is on the proverbial wall, we paint a new bullseye – a new standard.  We say, “this arrow is my standard on sexuality, that arrow is my standard on the value of human life; that arrow over there is my standard on how I handle my money; that one is the extent of my faithfulness to my spouse; that one way over there is my standard on honesty and lies.”  In creating new standards with which I inherently agree, I can now be guilt-free.

But as Brooks observes, creating my own standard strangely doesn’t eradicate my guilt, but may actually enhance it.  In Romans 2, the apostle Paul says that the law of God is written on the hearts of men.  In other words, when we zoom out on the new bullseyes we’ve created by shooting the arrows of our own desires and designs, we discover that God’s standard remains, because we remain in the world He created!  Therefore, our guilt hangs on like a burden that will not fall.

I’m so glad the Easter story gives the answer to the guilt that remains, as Jesus exchanged our guilt for His grace, so that we might be truly set free – not from God’s standard – but from the guilt and enslavement of my own!  May God have mercy on us –  that we might be set free from guilt and shame and made free to desire that which God desires!