What is your authority?

Authority seems to have become taboo in our culture. No one wants to sit under it and everyone wants to have it. Regardless of whether or not we want to acknowledge it, we all sit under some form of authority. Now I am not talking here of the reality that we all sit under the authority of God, though this is true and one day this will be made known. No, rather I am speaking of the authority on which we all base our views, our beliefs and convictions, our actions, our likes and dislikes. As we grow and form these areas of our life, we are all forming theme based around the authority of our life in that area. So the question is, what is our authority. This authority can take on many different forms.

For some, their authority comes from their emotions. They base their beliefs, their interest, their worldview around the emotions that these things invoke. If something stirs up inside of us a feeling of joy and happiness, well then it must be right. Life decisions, world-views even thoughts of God are based around their emotions and feelings and how they want things to be. Emotions are not bad, in fact they are good as they are given us from God. However, emotions are not meant to be our guiding force in life or our authority. The problem with this authority is it deceives you. Your emotions change from situation to situation. What may seem like certain truth and lead you to a strong conviction in one situation will lead you into changing your mind when the variables of a situation change. You base moral decisions and convictions based on the situation rather than truth.

Others find their authority based on experience. Often this view of authority is based largely around pragmatism. If I have experienced something in the past and it produced positive results, then it must be right. Views of right and wrong, good and bad, and even most beliefs and convictions are based around has it produced results. The problem is, everything that produces results is not by default right. This method also is deceiving and shifting. What happens when this "truth" no longer produces results, is it no longer a truth to which we are to hold? What if something that is counter opposite to this result producing truth or worldview also produces results or shows evidence that it "works?" Are they both true and worthy though they are opposed to one another?

For others, their authority comes from their logic or intellect. They analyze every situation and evaluate it to see if it logically adds up, and if it makes sense, then it is true and they will hold to it, but if it doesn't it must be rejected. If I am honest, I struggle with falling into this category. This sounds good on the surface, but this only works if the persons intellect and mindset is based around a logical set of truths and values by which to judge. If the persons intellect is based on faulty information, or worse, no information just their own wisdom, then what they conclude will also be skewed. Also, there are many very intelligent, educated people who diametrically disagree on any number of issues, so still this gives us no set standard of authority, but rather a shifting changing authority that is based on each persons thoughts.

The main problem with all of these authorities is that they make the individual the ultimate authority. It's the person's emotions, or experience or intellect that becomes the basis by which all things are judged. People cling to these authorities because it gives us a sense of control. If emotions, or experience or intellect are the authority, then ultimately I can shape right and wrong, my worldview, even my views of God to be exactly like I want them to be. This is dangerous and does not lead to truth that is absolute, but rather a truth that is weak and relative.

Rather, truth and authority must be set around something that is absolute and unchanging. Something that comes from the ultimate standard of truth, this being God. God is the source of all truth. He is to be the ultimate molder of our worldview. And He has not left who He is up to our imagination. He has revealed all these things through the Holy Scriptures. It is the scripture that is "breathed out by God and profitable" (2 Timothy 3:16). It is through His word, the Bible, that God has revealed the truth of morality, the truth of who He is and how one is reconciled to Him through Christ alone. It is through Scripture that God has laid out the truth of His bride the church and how she is to function and be lead. It is through His word that He has made known to us the ultimate authority on all these things. So the questions now becomes, will we submit these lesser authorities (our emotions, experience/pragmatism, and intellect) to the ultimate authority of Scripture? Will we allow the truths of Scripture to guide our emotions, not our emotions the truths of Scripture? Will we seek out of what the Bible teaches about our experiences and whether this thing or world view that "works" actually lines up with who God is and what He has revealed? Will we allow our intellects and worldviews to be shaped by the truth of God's word, not the things of this world? Will the Bible be the ultimate authority in our lives as believers, as it is intended to be, or will it simply become a slave to these other authorities that we have established?

Should we even try?

This morning I was reading an article from cnn.com entitled "Why young Christians aren't waiting anymore."  The article was written to show the vast similarity between Christians and non-Christians in the area of pre-marital sex.  The numbers were shocking to read.  There seems to be no difference in practicing sex outside of marriage for professing Christians as there non-Christian peers.  But what was even more staggering to me was the paragraph that closed out the article.  Here the writer posed the questions:

"So what should a Christian parent or youth pastor do? How do they convince more young Christians to wait until marriage, or should they stop even trying?

I fear the answer to this question for most parents and pastors, both student pastors and lead pastors alike, is that we should just accept the facts and not try anymore.  I fear we have just accepted the immorality of church goers as a whole (because this issue goes far beyond those rebellious teenagers) and adopted the mentality that there is nothing we can do.  So, what should we do?  How are we as parents and pastors to raise up a generation of disciples of Christ who are marked by holiness not conformity?  

Before I address how we should do this, I want to address how we should not do this.  First, we should not use the "because Christians don't do that sort of thing" argument.  This gives no reason for life change and breeds either religion or rebellion.  Either the person will obey this order out of duty and compulsion rather than love or they will reject the teaching all together because they see no legitimate reason to adhere to it.  

Also, we must not reduce ourselves to using the fear technique (Have sex and you will die!) to manipulate sexual purity and holiness.  Anyone who has ever been involved in a youth group or sat under any teaching on abstinence has encountered this.  The person teaching gives all these statistics on teen pregnancy and tells you how bad STD's are and then proceeds to tell you that this is why you shouldn't have sex until you are married. 

There are two main problems with this approach.  One, nobody ever really believes this will happen to them.  This type of teaching may have an effect for a short while, but then they will realize that their peers are engaging in sexual activity and the majority of them are not pregnant nor disease ridden.  The fear that leads to purity slowly dwindles and the commitment to abstinence dwindles with it.  Second, one's personal health and safety should not be the reason we follow Christ commands as believers.  Our motivation for obedience and holiness on any level should flow from the love of Christ for us and His work on our behalf, not from a fear of sickness or pregnancy.  

So what should are response be as parents and the church to this reality that more and more professing Christians are being conformed to the way of the world?  To put it simply, preach Christ and Him crucified.  Teach as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 6:20 "for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body."  If we are going to see the church follow Christ in holiness, specifically dealing with the issue of sexual purity, it has to be in light of the completed work of Christ and who we are in Him, no through fear.  Raise believers up in the gracious gospel of Christ and teach them who they are in Him.  People who are consumed with the glorious work and person of Christ Jesus will follow Him and seek purity for they know that He is good and His commands are from love not oppression.

So to answer the question posed in the title of this post, "Should we even try?", absolutely we should.  As parents and the church, we should not sit by why those who profess to be believers in Christ sit in the filth of their sins, rather we should proclaim the work of Christ and the reality of who they are in Him and loving lead them through the power of the Spirit from conformity to the world to a holiness in Christ Jesus.  So the question to be ask now is not should we try, rather will we?

An article every Christian parent must read

I came across this post from Joshua Harris on parenting and wanted to pass it along.  It is written to homeschoolers, but is not limited to them.  This is an article that speaks to every Christian parent who desires to see their child follow after Christ.  It was very convicting to me as I begin the venture known as parenting and I think back on the teaching and counseling I have done to parents in the past.  May we seek to capture the hearts of our children, not their behavior.

Read the article here.

Worship or behavior modification?

Having always attended and served in your typical SBC church, the issues of music style and ways we worship always seem to be a recurring conversation that takes place.  And if you are thinking that this is going to be a post promoting one side or the other, you are wrong.  Sorry to disappoint you.  The issue at hand is not the style of music that is sung or not sung as the church gathers for corporate worship,rather the heart of the people doing the "worshiping."  It seems we are more treating the symptoms and leading people to appear as if they are worshiping rather than treating the core issue and leading people into true worship.  If a person is truly not worshiping, it has nothing to do with the style of music being played )with the exceptions of screamo music, music so heavily distorted I can't understand anything, and the old lady playing the upright piano that has not been tuned in 3 decades playing every song the same tempo to make it even more irritating) rather it is, for the most part, the persons low view of the God toward whom the worship is directed.  However, when I have these conversations with people it seems they are more concerned with getting people to perform certain actions, i.e clap/raise their hands, smile, or like newer upbeat music.  Do not misunderstand me, these things are not bad, but these should simply be the outpourings of true worship not mistaken for being true worship.

In Matthew 23:13-36, Jesus is condemning the Pharisees for appearing righteous on the outside yet remaing unclean on the inside.  I fear that when it comes to this issue, and many others in the church, we are producing people who sit in a pew and perform certain actions we want them to perform, appear righteous and worshipful, yet have no true worship and affection for God in them.

The key to changing a lifeless and worshipless congregation is not to get them to clap or raise their hands or smile when they sing praise songs.  Likewise, the key to getting the younger generation to truly worship is not to do away with hymns and sings cool and trendy praise songs.  Hymns are great and so are contemporary worship songs (well there are some in both categories that need to be done away with, but that is a different post.)  We as pastors, worship leaders, and believers in the church hungry to see the church be the vibrant bride of Christ must not mistake getting people to sing a certain style song or to perform certain actions in the midst of their singing as the key to getting the church to worship.  John Piper has said "You can't praise what you don't prize."  They key to leading a church to be a congregation of true worshipers is to get them to prize the resurrected Christ above all else.  To see God as Isaiah did, high and lifted up.  If we make much of the resurrected Savior and lead people to His glory and splendor, we will not need to sing a certain type of song or coerce them to performing actions, rather simply sing the truth of who He is and what He has done for us in Christ Jesus and worship will come in light of the truth of who He is.

Update from Team Macedonia

The trip so far is going extremely well.  It is a different mission trip in the aspect that we are not doing a "project" but rather we are meeting people.  Most times we think of mission trips and we think of building a house or accomplishing a project that at the end of the day we can look back and see tangible things we have accomplished.  This is not the case with what we are doing.  Our primary goal is the engage the locals here and build relationships with them leading to the gospel of Christ Jesus.  Everyone in the group has made connections with at least one, and yesterday was really the first day we were out to where we could do this.  Be praying for us as we continue to engage these people, and pray we can be faithful to walk along side Brian and Charlie as they reach these people with the gospel of Christ.

I hope to be able to write more later today, but I at least wanted to touch base and give everyone a brief update on our status.  Thank you all for  your prayers and we can't wait to get back home and share what God has done.

We have arrived

Well we are here.  It is 3pm Monday local time now but this is the first opportunity I have had to connect to the internet.  Just wanted to post and let everyone know we have arrived safely and things are flowing nicely.  I will post more later today when the opportunity comes.

Macedonia Mission Trip

Well the time for departure has arrived.  Tomorrow, Saturday, July 16, I leave for my first overseas mission trip.  There are many emotions stirring in me, but mostly anticipation in what the LORD is going to do while we are there.  I covet the prayers of you all in the specific request below.

1. That the LORD will lead us to those in whose heart He is stirring.
2. That the LORD will open their hearts to pay attention to the gospel we
     proclaim (Acts 16:14)
3. That we will see at least one submit to Christ as Savior and will be able to plant the seed of the gospel to many more
4. For our families as we are away
5. For our safety  (pray over the planes, the pilots, the 4 hr. van ride, etc)

I will be updating the website with information regarding what we are doing and hopefully upload some pictures/videos, so keep checking back for information on the trip.  Thanks for your prayers.

Phantom of the Opera or the local church?

As much as I love a good western or war movie, if I'm honest I love the occasional musical as well.  The other night Jess and I were having an at home date night and decided to watch The Phantom of the Opera, which I must say is one of my favorites.  As I was watching there was one scene in particular that reminded me of how the local church acts at times.  No, this is not a reference to how there is often one or group in the church who would rather see the place burn down than operate differently than they think it should.  The scene to which I am referring is the scene during the party where everyone starts singing the song "Masquerade."  The lyrics of this song I fear ring true in the minds of church goers as they hang around the "church friends" or prepare to attend the corporate worship gathering on Sunday morning.  Some of the lyrics that stood out to me were:

Masquerade! You can fool any friend who ever knew you!

and

Masquerade! Hide your face, so the world will never find you!

I am concerned as I serve in the church that the members of the congregations which we attend, and at times even I myself, sing this song inadvertently every time we gather as the church.  We come to church and we hide behind our smiles and every time someone ask us how we are we say some cheesy Christian answer like "I'm blessed" or the generic "I'm fine" when in reality we are facing something horrible or we are struggling in sin or just plain having a bad day.  But we dare not let our mask down, for after all, if people knew who we really were there is no way they would still love us.  This is one of the major problems I see facing the church today, especially in the south.  We are so fake in our love for one another and in our relationships that we just stay behind our mask, and so when new people come, they feel they have to get their own mask if they are going to fit into a place where everyone seems to have it together.

No wonder people are sitting in their sins and stagnant in their relationship with God and with their Christian brethren, because if they cry out for help their facade will be exposed.  If we are the church are truly going to display the gospel of Christ and effectively walk along side our brothers and sisters in Christ and reach this community, we have to throw down our mask and be real and genuine and make ourselves vulnerable.  After all is the gospel not about a God who loves us and died for us in spite of our sin and offers us forgiveness and sanctification through Christ Jesus?  Why then does the church relate to each other in a way that says unless you have everything together you are not welcome here.  What if we dared to truly be the church in this?  To truly open up to one another and share ones burdens with the body.  What if we were open and honest about our struggles in our relationship about God and our sins with which we struggle and stopped acting as if we have everything together.  Would this not make God look more glorious?  Would this not display to the world His unconditional love through Christ?  If we are truly going to be the church we have to start with this, being in genuine community with one another through an open, transparent relationship.

Church, it is time we left the Masquerade party and starting being real with one another.  Let us love one another through the lens of the gospel and not the lens of false religion.

Learn your rules, you'd better learn your rules!!!

I have a confession to make, I love the tv show "The Office."  And while I am confessing this bit of information, I will make another confession, Dwight K. Schrute is my favorite character on the show.  There is a scene (in clip below) where Dwight talks about learning his rules as a child.



While this is funny, the thought hits me as I watch this, how many Christian parents raise their children in the same way.  Now of course we would never tell our children they will get eaten in their sleep, well at least most of us, but how often do we still use fear, especially fear of rejection and loss of love, to manipulate our children's behavior to meet our standard.  I fear, and in fact I see evidence to support this is true, that many children are raised in a way that they view God as one who loves them or rejects them based on their goodness.  And what troubles me even more is they get this from the picture of God that they get from their parents.  This view of God completely destroys the beauty of the gospel.  The gospel is that God loves us in spite of our rebellion through the righteousness of Christ.  God doesn't love us based on how well we "learn our rules" but rather based on the righteousness of Christ imparted to us.  Are we raising "godly" children who live a life in fear of rejection if they do not meet a standard?  Or are we raising  a generation of students engulfed with the love of God through the work of Christ Jesus?  We must strive as parents to display the gospel to our children in how we raise them, not behavior modified religion.

Who gets the glory?

Over the past few days I have spent some time reading through Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia.  While I was reading yesterday, there was a verse I read, one I have read many times before that stuck out to me and made me think: Think about my life, my ministry, my witness to the lost.

In chapter 1 Paul is writing of his conversion experience in verses 11-24, and in verse 24 he writes, "And they glorified God because of me."  As Paul was changed, God was glorified.  If you read back through the preceding verses, there is only one person performing the verbs that are taking place in Paul's conversion, and that is God.    It was God who set Paul apart, God who called him by His grace and God how was pleased to reveal His Son. And this is no different for anyone who is saved in Christ Jesus.

Paul never got past his radical depravity and his glorious salvation.  As Paul recounted his conversion, as the people in Paul's life saw his changed life, and as Paul proclaimed the gospel of Christ, there was one thing that prevailed; this being the God's glorious grace towards him.  As I read this my mind immediately began to think through my life and my ministry.  Who gets the glory?  As I tell of my conversion, am I the main character?  Am I the one who figured it out?  Am I the one who just decided to turn over a new leaf?  Or is God the main character?  Is God the one that gets full credit for my salvation, or is He simply a supporting role?  And beyond this, what gospel am I preaching?  Am I preaching a gospel that revolves around the mercy and grace of a glorious God, or am I preaching a gospel that downplays our sinfulness and teaches just cleaning up our act?

As we look at our lives as believers, our witness to the lost world, we must keep the glory of God at the center.  We must cling to the truth of the gospel, and daily live in the truth that it is simply through the mercy and goodness of God that we are saved and live in a way that people, as they see our lives and hear our story, glorify God because of us.

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1  Corinthians 10:31 ESV