This also means that what comes out on this blog is not a finished product, but rather some half-baked ideas I’m still sorting through.  So, think of DI as more of a journal than a newspaper.

Every pastor has their own routine for preparing sermons. Some spend 20 hours in their study, pouring over commentaries, reading the Greek or Hebrew, and preparing elaborate outlines or manuscripts. Others draw largely from others’ research and study, using preaching outlines, ready-made illustrations, finding sermons online or following a curriculum of sorts.

Most of us are somewhere between. 

I am only beginning to figure out my own sermon preparation routine. Each week is different. Somethings are working better than others. Trial and error — a lot of error. But I am closer to the first person above, and my sermons are largely the original product of my own personal study of the Word. Simply put: I’m a student at heart, and I would go crazy if I didn’t spend a good chunk of my time each week anchored in the Word. It feeds my soul. My personal study of the Word – with its epiphanies, aha moments, wrestling with difficult texts, the agony of boiling a text with one hundred lessons down to 2 or 3 — all of this gives me fuel to do all the other tasks of leadership and ministry.

I’m excited about the new series we begin this week.  It will allow us to focus on a few things I believe are necessary at this point for a brand new church:

1. While John 3 focused us on how to become a Christian, John 4 will explore how we can become more active disciples and committed disciples.

2. I believe it is essential for us to stay focused on Jesus at this point. I love the OT, the epistles, and more, but MainStreet will always be first and foremost a community centered around following Jesus.

3. One of the core values of MainStreet is mobilizing believers to live out their faith beyond the walls of the church — “in the marketplace daily with all who happen to be there” (Acts 17:17). This series turns our eyes toward the mission as we travel with Jesus out into some uncomfortable territory.

So, I hope you join us for this study in the weeks ahead. And we’ll see if I find some time to share some thoughts by way of the blog.

Peace, JB

Trust is earned through acts of faithfulness and a track record of dependability.  If our trail guide gets our backpacking team safely up the mountain, then we can probably trust him or her to get us back down in one piece as well. The same is true with God.

Our trust in God for the future is anchored in the faithfulness of God in the past. In the story below, Samuel cries out to the Lord to rescue the Israelites from their enemy the Philistines.  After the Lord answeres his cry for help and intervenes on their behalf, Samuel sets up a special stone of remembrance and makes a powerful statement. Here’s the story:

1 Samuel 7:7-8, 10, 12

When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. When the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines. They said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.” …He cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him… That day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and thew them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites… Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen.  He named it Ebenezer (meaning ‘stone of help’), saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

A couple noteworthy observations.  First, Samuel sets up a stone of remembrance.  Perhaps this a private stone to bolster his own shakey faith, or a reminder for the entire community, or both.

Second, perhaps somewhat strange to us, he gives the stone a proper name.  (So go easy on the little boy at school with a pet rock.)  As is typical in the Bible, names have meaning.  “Ebenezer” means “a stone of help.”  This stone is a visual reminder that God stepped in to help, to rescue from danger, to save from their enemies.

Third, and most emphatic in this text, is the statement Samuel utters as he sets up his Ebenezer stone: “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” What I hear in this phrase is a declaration of God’s trustworthiness “up until this point.”  “Thus far” God has proven faithful.  “Thus far” God has not let us down.  “Thus far” his promises have been kept.  “Thus far” He has provided for us what we need.

The implication seems to be that if God has proven faithful thus far in the journey, then we can also trust Him going forward into the uncertain future ahead of us.  Again, our trust in God for the future is anchored in the faithfulness of God in our past.

What’s your Ebenezer?  What personal moment or memory do you replay in your head to remind yourself of God’s faithfulness?  When has the Lord helped you out of a pickle, saved you from an enemy, provided miraculously in a moment of despair?  What story of God’s past faithfulness do you tell your children to reassure them that God is in the “help business”?

What’s my Ebenezer?  This is a no brainer for me.  As we choose to trust the Lord with this Vision to church plant in Mound, I merely have to remember a few years back to the Revolution ministry we started to be reminded of the many ways the Lord helped us.  I trust the Lord with the future of Mound because I have seen his powerful hand at work in raising up a movement in Mound in the past.

He did some big things with very little back then.  Therefore, I have great faith that he will do far greater things this time around as we have a much better support network behind us. My memories of the Revolution in Mound are my Ebenezer — my “stone of help” — that makes me want to declare confidently to all who have ears to hear: “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

The Bible describes faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb 11:1).  In other words, trusting God to deliver on his promises demands hanging onto hope against hope, and moving confidently towards something which is yet unseen.

Our forefathers in the faith discovered the powerful practice of setting up visual monuments or memorials to remind them of God’s faithfulness in the past in order to fuel faith for the future. More often than not, these memorials involved stones and rocks.

In the previous post I mentioned “my immovable rock” by the harbor in Mound that I sit upon regularly on my prayer walks. This massive, sturdy, immovable rock has become a visual symbol of God’s bigness, God’s rock-solid faithfulness, and God’s immovable promise to be true to the Vision he has given Keri and I to plant a church in Mound.

By claiming this rock as a visual symbol of God’s promises for the future and faithfulness in the past, I am carrying on a long and ancient tradition found repeatedly in the scriptures.

Consider an example.

Joshua 4:4-7

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

Do we have any visual memorials for our children to ask us about? What spiritual symbols do we display to remind us of God’s heroic acts in our life? We have largely ridded ourselves of conversation pieces in our homes today. When we invite company over for dinner, we usually talk about things present and future. Yet the ancients sought to understand both present and future realities in light of the settled past. As Soren Kierkegaard put it, “Life must be lived forward, but understood backwards.”

Yet, God knew very well that human beings have a poor and selective memory, and so he told Joshua to have his people set up a stone memorial “to serve as a sign among you” and conversation starter for one generation to pass along the story of God’s miraculous provision to the next generation who may not have witnessed the power of God in such a concrete way.

I was walking along my prayer path the other day with a young college-aged disciple of mine, and had the opportunity to share the significance of my immovable rock. I looked this young man in the eyes, and said, “The Lord has laid a big vision on my heart to be part of launching a new ministry and community in this town, and this rock will serve as a symbol of God’s immovable promises and rock-solid faithfulnesses to the ones he has called according to his purpose.”

Now that ordinary rock has extraordinary meaning for Kyle as well as me. Perhaps Kyle will someday walk by the rock with somebody else and share the immovable Vision of God for Mound them. This is the power of a visual memorial to the Lord.

Next time we’ll explore a stone named Ebenezer.

Keri and I are in the early stages of following the Lord’s vision to plant a church in Mound. Holding fast to the Vision is of utmost importance for those called to the work of church planting.

In the beginning stages the Vision is all you really have — two flawed human beings with what seems at times to be a crazy dream to bring a new community of faith to a spiritually thirsty town.

When the Lord gives you a vision, you can be certain that Satan wants to steal it away. The Vision must be protected at all times. The ways the Evil One might accomplish this are manifold: recurring bouts of self-doubt and insecurity, being sidetracked by other cares and worries of the world, ensnared by secret sins, derailed by internal conflict and disunity, and a thousand other subtle attacks.

This particular calling and vision has been tested and confirmed over a long period of time — nearly five years for me! — and in a number of ways remarkable.  The most powerful and consistent confirmation of God’s call comes repeatedly during my regular prayer walks through the town — usually late at night around midnight.

These prayer walks are my lifeline to the Lord.  I am no prayer warrior, but these prayer walks consistently awaken in me a powerful sense of intimacy and openness to the presence of the living God.  As I walk the streets of town, my heart is gripped by a spirit of holy desperation and urgency for the gospel to go forth in new and powerful ways.  I feel a deep burden for the community, and grieve the inability of existing churches to break new ground in reaching those outside their doors — especially local teenagers and the young adult population (age 18-35).

My prayers are passionate.  Tears often flow as I cry out to the Lord, begging Him to bring revival to my hometown.  I experience regular rushes of excitement and confidence that the Lord is indeed on the move, setting the table and preparing the way for us to raise up a fresh community of faith.

But it is still just a Vision at this point. God-given, yes, but still merely a vision living in our hearts and not yet taking root in the community in any tangible, concrete way. These momentary surges of confidence are always followed by recurring battles with doubt. So, we need something tangible in the mean time to serve as a visible, touchable symbol of God’s faithfulness to His call.

The Lord has given me one such reminder, a tangible symbol to literally rest upon.  Every night on my prayer walk I come down the same path along the Lost Lake public docks in the center of town.  Right near the water’s edge there sits a massive flat topped boulder about the size of a Volkswagen bug.  I have made it a habit to crawl up and sit on the large rock, and overlooking the lake under the starlit sky I pray.  My prayer has remained largely the same everytime:

Lord, let this massive and immovable rock upon which I sit be a reminder of your unmovable promises and rock-solid faithfulness to your servant.  May the Vision you have given to us be as immovable as this rock.  May everything we do for you and the advancement of the Kingdom in this town be built upon the rock of Christ and not on the sinking sands of our own will power.  As the winds of adversity blow and the waves of doubt crash against us, may your Vision be as solid as this rock in our hearts — my immovable rock. Amen.

While this may seem like a great act of faith, I am only entering into one of the most basic practices of our ancient faith.  In the next few couple posts I will unpack the power of setting up visual symbols and memorials to remind us of God’s faithfulness.  Stay tuned.

But let me ask you: Do you have any tangible symbols of God’s faithfulness in your life?  Any trinkets of great spiritual significance?

Recently I had a serious steering alignment problem. My alignment was so bad that if I let my hand off the wheel for a split second my car would veer sharply to the right into the ditch. Instead of getting it fixed, I decided to just fight it for months by gripping the wheel tighter. Eventually my wrists began to ache from holding the steering wheel straight.

The Bible describes a world completely out of alignment with God’s will and purposes. Human sin and rebellion have jerked everything out of whack. If we simply leave things, people, nature, government, etc. to do what comes naturally, we’re all veering into ditches, colliding head on and driving off cliffs.

Religion steps in at this point and provides some guard rails to help keep us on the road and out of the ditch. God gave us his Law to show us the righteous path, the holy road, that if followed will keep us from self-desctructive twists and turns, reckless off-roading adventures.  But unlike my car’s steering, the misalignment of the human will caused by sin has no quick and easy fix.

Nicodemus has come to Jesus as a religious person wanting to tweak the system a bit. He’s approaching the human sin problem, the alignment issue, as a mechanic approaches an oil change or quick tune-up. His repeated question in John 3 is, “How?”  ”How can that be?  How is that possible?”  He’s focused on the mechanisms under the hood, or adding more guard rails to keep us on the right path. Or, like my death grip on my steering wheel, Nicodemus may just think a tighter grip on God’s Law will keep him on the narrow way.

But Jesus (and the Bible) show Nic that the human problem is even worse than this. The Bible says that sin’s effects run far deeper. Sin’s grip on the human race has our hands tied behind our back and our eyes blindfolded as we glide along in the driver’s seat of a car with poor alignment on a road with cliffs on both sides. Religion says, “Grab the wheel and try hard to keep on the road.” The Bible asserts that we’re dead in our sins and without hope apart from divine intervention. “No one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Nicodemus may have come to Jesus to tune-up his religious system and tweak the mechanics, but Jesus is talking about a dead driver in need of a new heart — a new birth. This line of thought is evident throughout John 3:1-21, but may be strongest in Jesus’ allusion to a strange episode in Israel’s past:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” 

Jesus refers to Numbers 21:4-9 where Israel again strays from God, and as a consequence for their disobedience a bunch of poisonous snakes are set loose to kill them. The people confess their sin and cry out for help. God mercifully provides a strange means of salvation. He tells Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”

By referring to this sad episode in Israel’s collective memory, he was drawing out several lessons that Nicodemus would very well have grasped. (Most contemporary Christians aren’t familiar with this story.):

1. The snake bites were lethal and apart from God’s merciful intervention, they would have all perished.  Likewise, we’ve all been bit by Sin and we too are perishing apart from divine rescue. “Whoever does not believe stands condemned already…” (18).

2. Just as the bronze snake on a pole was God’s means of saving the Israelites, so Jesus lifted up on the cross is God’s means of saving the world from Sin’s venomous bite. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (14-15). 

3. Only the Israelites who looked at the bronze snake were spared, and only those who believe in Christ and his saving work will be saved. The need for faith is repeated 3 times in these verses: ”…everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned…” (15-18)

4. Some Israelites bitten by the snakes likely pretended they were fine or doubted the ability of the bronze snake to heal them and therefore perished. Likewise Jesus warns that many will persist in unbelief, denying that they’ve been bitten by Sin and are perishing. One of the lethal qualities of sin is the selfish pride that insists we are not really in the dark, and the shame that keeps us in the darkness lest our sinful deeds be exposed. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed” (19-20).

To tie both metaphors together, we therefore find 3 types of people in the world:

1. The religious person believes there is a holy road to follow, the ditches are real, and acknowledges that sin has our steering misaligned. He grips the wheel tighter, tries harder to keep the car between the lines, and let’s God’s Law provide some guard rails to keep him out of the ditch.

2. The worldly skeptic generally denies there is a God-paved road, believes the guard rails of Holy Scripture are restrictive, downplays the alignment problem, doesn’t believe there’s a cliff, and goes about trailblazing a path of his own making without thought of the consequences.

3. The Christian believes the same the basics of the religious person, but also realizes sin has tied his hands behind his back, blindfolded him, and he’s heading for a cliff.

The good news for Nicodemus and us, is not merely that God sent Christ to pay our infinite bill in the cosmic repair shop, but that he put himself in the driver’s seat of our car and went off the cliff in our place, suffering the consequences for our misaligned hearts. He went off the cliff for our sins. He was lifted up on the poll for our healing.

All we need to do is look to him and live, believe in his sacrifice be saved.  We don’t need to drive off that cliff. ” Let’s repent and believe the good news.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

In my experience, the church has tended to adopt a “come to us” posture toward a lost and hurting world.  We prefer the “light house” image of church where the church is a sanctuary that houses the light of the gospel.  Our mission then becomes inviting others to “come to church” to encounter the light.  There is nothing wrong with this approach….but is it the most biblical image?  Is is the most effective approach to reaching people in our culture?

For both biblical and cultural reasons, I believe the church in post-Christian America needs to exchange the “light house” image for the image of a rescue boat. Jesus invites us “into the boat” (Mk 4:35) to become “fishers of men” (Matt 4:19) to “go out and make disciples” (Matt 28) by engaging lost people “in the marketplace daily” (Acts 17:17).  In a culture that is receptive to spirituality and Jesus, but largely disinterested or even turned off by “church”, we cannot wait for lost people to come to the church.  The church — Jesus’ followers — must go to them.

I was reading a well-known statement of Jesus this week that took on fresh meaning as I read in light of these observations above and the vision of MainStreet Covenant Church we’re forming in Mound, MN.   In Matt 5:14-16 Jesus says,

I recently preached a sermon challenging MainStreet to be both a “Safe and Holy Place.”  In that context, I was referring to being “safe” from shame, condemnation and the graceless legalism of the Pharisees.

I was in no way speaking of a church that is “safe” in terms of being a risk-free, controlled environment where there are few surprises and we all stay within our own personal comfort zones. The Bible, as I read it, is largely a story of unsuspecting people getting yanked out of their comfort zones and invited into the dangerous and demanding life of “risky obedience”. Safety, risk-management and comfort are precious American values; but they are not biblical values.

The lives of Abraham, Moses, Noah, David, Elijah, Paul, Peter, John and the rest all seem to involve leaving something of value and comfort behind, being led into a time of testing, facing great hardship and sacrifice because of their faithfulness to God, and experiencing God in profound ways because of their faithfulness.

The past couple weeks I have been unable to escape several passages God keeps bringing to my attention. I believe everyone involved with MainStreet needs to wrestle these words, too. Some of the key passages include: 

“We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life” (Matt 19).

“Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matt 16:24-27). 

Commenting on this theme, Craig Keener says:

Only a cause worth dying for is truly worth living for, and a generation of Western youth, deprived of causes worth their lives and of elders personally committed enough to point the way, have become restless and disillusioned. ”Taking up one’s cross” in antiquity hardly meant simply putting up with an annoying roommate or having to live with ingrown toenails. It meant marching on the way to one’s execution, shamefully carrying the heavy horizontal beam (the patibulum) of one’s own death-instrument through a jeering mob (Jeremias 1972:218-19 and 1971:242). Although genuine Christians may fall short on their commitment at times (26:69-75), those who wish to follow Christ should understand from the start that they are surrendering their lives to Christ. Those who do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord — as having the right to demand of them anything, including their lives — have yet to be truly converted. Today Christians continue to debate the character of the gospel: to be saved, does one need to accept Christ as Lord or only as Savior? Throughout the New Testament, however, the question is more or less a moot one. Jesus came to save us from our sin, and accepting him must include recognizing his right to rule our lives. This does not imply that Christians are perfect; it does indicate that they recognize who their Lord is…Yet how few disciples we have; except for going to church and paying tithes, many Christians today do with their time and money much the same as what morally upright non-Christians do. (IVP Commentary: Matthew).

There are few opportunities today more risk-filled and faith-stretching than being part of planting a new church. If you want to experience what you have always read about in the New Testament, then be part of a church planting effort.

Friends, the fields are ripe for harvest in Mound as MainStreet pushes ahead. But the workers are still few.  In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if the greatest challenge isn’t the number of workers, but rather the level of commitment we are able to give with our busy, over-extended schedules. Let Jesus’ words challenge us today with a few direct questions:

1. The disciples gave up “everything” to be part of Jesus’ mission. What, if anything, have we needed to leave behind in order to serve at MainStreet?  They did not add Jesus’ mission to a long list of other activities. They needed to let go of other good things in order to embrace the greater task. Jesus specifically mentions leaving “home” and “family” for the sake of his mission.  In our case, might God be asking some to leave a beloved church home in order to be obedient to God?  Would we be willing to make that kind of a sacrifice?  If it doesn’t hurt, we’re probably not sacrificing to the degree that Jesus desires.
2. Jesus warns his disciples of the temptation to get sidetracked or turn back. Have you put your hand to the plow and are now being tempted to turn back before the task is done? We believe our mission in Mound is of life-and-death significance. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being invested in our vision, years of preparation have brought us to this crucial point, and the spiritual condition of an entire city hangs partly in the balance.Years from now we will look back on these days, and tell stories of the wonders we saw God perform among us — because we said ‘Yes’ and stepped out in faithful obedience. Let us not miss out on the harvest because we looked back, lost our focus, or quit too soon. “Let us not become weary in doing good.  For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up” (Gal. 6:9).
3. Following Jesus means a lifestyle of self-denial and painful sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom mission. For the first Christians self-denial usually meant being disowned by one’s family, facing public ridicule, violent persecution, imprisonment, and often death. Today we feel like we are denying ourselves and taking up our cross if we give up a relaxing night at home to attend a church meeting, get up two hours earlier on Sunday to set up chairs, volunteer in the nursery, or open our home to host a LifeGroup.  We make a mockery of the Christ’s cross when we consider such small sacrifices our own version of “taking up our cross.”  Again, if we’re not hurting, losing sleep, exhausted and daily depending on God’s strength to carry us forward, then we’ve yet to enter into the kind of discipleship Jesus requires.

Will you be bold enough to ask God to increase your burden until it starts to hurt?  Will you increase your commitment to God’s work at MainStreet, not because you feel like it, but because the mission demands it?  (A person once told me they were leaving MainStreet because their “heart just isn’t in it.”  This is usually a nice way of saying, “I don’t really feel like helping.” Honestly, should one ever expect to really feel like taking up a cross?  The question isn’t, “Is my heart in this mission”; but rather, “God, show me what breaks your heart, and help me move toward that cause whether my heart is in it or not.”)  We serve because people are perishing, and God’s marching orders are clear: “Deny yourselves and take up your cross.”  Not because we get a warm, fuzzy feeling when we do it, but because we somehow participate in Christ’s suffering: “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13).

I want to thank you all for heeding God’s call and for stepping into this MainStreet journey.  Some of you chose this. Some of you, like me, were chosen — quite against your will. Some of us are having a blast.  Others are tired but faithfully pressing on until the mission is accomplished or until God releases us. We all need to seek the Lord in these things.

As for me, in seeking God’s will, I have never heard God speak to directly from a cloud. I have never pursued a ministry task because I felt like it. I have always heard God’s clear call on my life as I have read the Scriptures and made Jesus’ challenge to his original disciples his challenge to me. May you do the same.

I close with a word of encouragement from Mike Brown, our Director of Church Planting, from an email he sent to all of us church planters recently. These words apply to you as well:

“The church of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world.  God’s first and only plan is to reach the world through His church.  That’s why I’m confident each day that what you are doing not only matters but is in the center of God’s will.  You are all God’s chosen ones, selected for the time, place, and call that you are currently living into.  Even though planting is hard, the one thing I am convinced will result in an inner peace and a fruitful ministry is a total dependence on God and His power.  We are not powerless in this world, but are told, “the very power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to all who believe.”   As one of our planters so eloquently put it, “It’s not my church…it’s God’s church.”   So God will do as He pleases with us as we are yielded to Him…. I thank God daily for each of you, and pray for your ministry to bear much fruit.”

-From Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults by R. Dunn & J. Sundene, 58-59.

HOW DO YOU DO THIS IN A DRIVE-THRU CULTURE?

Jesus’ disciples spent 3 years, day and night, sitting at his feet – and they still didn’t get it or know him. “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time” (John 14:9)? And we think we can become faithful Christians immersed in the realities of the Kingdom by listening to a 30 minute sermon each week? No wonder our views are far more shaped by pop culture and the never-ending political discourse.

Pray for MainStreet Church in Mound as we try to create a disciple-making culture in a fast-paced society.

How do you talk about something that is necessary to experience firsthand?  It’s like describing a Mozart piece instead of listening to it.  It’s like talking about a Rembrandt painting rather than looking at it. It’s like trying to describe love to someone who’s never been in love.

These sermons drive a preacher to his knees, and bring him to the end of himself. I can only invite people to follow Nicodemus into that face-t0-face, personal encounter with Jesus, and pray that the Holy Spirit will come among us and open people’s eyes and transform hearts.  Come Holy Spirit!

Here’s a good quote from Gary Burge’s commentary on The Gospel of John:

“Religion is not necessarily a matter of personal knowledge or ethical behavior. Nor is it fidelity to religious traditions, no matter how virtuously they evoke higher ethical, religious behavior among us. Jesus is claiming that true spirituality is not discovering some latent capacity within the human soul and fanning it to flame. It is not uncovering a moral consciousness that is hidden by sedimentary layers of civilization’s corruptions. It is not a “horizontal” experience that takes up the materials available around us in the world.

Rather, Jesus claims, true religion is “vertical.” It has to do not with the human spirit, but with God’s Spirit. It is a foreign invasion, sabotage of the first order. True religion unites humanity with God’s powerful Spirit, who overwhelms, transforms, and converts (in the full meaning of the word) its subject. Our role in this transformation is belief(3:16,18), and yet is is a belief that is aided by God’s work within us since we live in the darkness and have our spiritual capacities handicapped with sin” (Gary Burge, Gospel of John: New Application Commentary, 126).

Come Holy Spirit!  Invade our presence, and sabotage our hearts! Blow mightily among us at MainStreet this Sunday and every day!

I was standing on the dock putting gasoline into the boat the other day.  I happened to read the bright yellow warning sticker as I slowly poured the 5-gallons into the tank.  The sticker read: 

WARNING: Leaking fuel is a fire and explosion hazard.  Inspect fuel system often. 

My mind began searching for some Christian life lesson or, as we call them at here at Daily Illumination, another “sacred analogy.”  I came up with one worth pondering.

WARNING STICKERS.  This analogy first begins with the observation that what goes for Christianity in America is a much more tamed, PG-rated and user-friendly version than the risky, life-endangering, explosive kind of faith found in the Bible. True faith in the Holy, Living God of the Bible is serious business and should come with many yellow, reflective WARNING stickers as well.  Some sobering warning stickers would do much to promote the true, authentic faith the martyrs gave their life for than padded seats, air-conditioned auditoriums and cute, catchy cliches plastered on the bumpers of Christian mini-vans. (Not that there is anything wrong with these things in and of themselves; but I think you get my point.)

Remember how the great lion Aslan is described in the Chronicles of Narnia when one asks if this Aslan (or God) is a safe, tame lion?  He is most certainly not safe or tame; but He is good.  Likewise, true Christianity isn’t a safe endeavor either; it is “the good fight” as Paul likes to say.  That’s right: When we enter into worship, call on the living God in prayer, join with other Christians in Kingdom advancing efforts and open our Bibles for truth an wisdom, we should be reminded that we are dealing with highly explosive, powerful stuff and should proceed with great caution and care.  

When I was launching the Revolution ministry in Mound back in 2005, I decided to call our meeting space where we hosted our Battle of the Bands and Coffeehouse gatherings “Ground Zero.”  I got flack from some folks because “Ground Zero” sounded too violent and destructive.  And ever since the 9/11 attacks “ground zero” tends to conjure up images of terrorist attacks, burning buildings and death.  But at that time I was focused on the literal dictionary meaning that defines”ground zero” as:

1. The impact point of a powerful explosion

2. The center of rapid or intense development or change

3. The starting point or most basic level

This sounded like 3 great values and goals for any revolutionary youth ministry: (#1) Bring teens into an intense encounter with the Living God that blows apart their previous life and impacts them for eternity (Encounter), (#3) begin again as New Creations on the long journey of discipleship (Repentance & New Beginning), and (#2) becoming part of a community that lives at the center of intense development or change (Transformation).  I wanted the teens of our community to know that coming into the presence of the Living God was anything but safe. “Ground Zero” seemed to capture this truth better than “The Harbor” or “The Refuge” or plain old “Youth Room.”  So, does your brand of Christian faith need a warning label?  

LEAKING FUEL.  Secondly, in this analogy we are all being fueled by faith in God daily and called to leak it all over everyone we encounter.  God is our source of life — our fuel — and we are to share this life-force of faith with others who are running on the fumes of false sources of life. Just as Jesus tells us to let our light shine and not hide it under a bushel, we should similarly let our faith-fuel “leak” out and not hoard it to ourselves.  We live in a world filled with people running on empty and in need of a spiritual pit stop to refuel.  Tragically, we have many people stranded in the middle of life, tank totally dry and desperately trying to row their way to some distant shore by their own strength but with arms growing very, very tired.  

As I gripped that red gas container and poured the fuel into the boat, I was reminded of Jeremiah’s words in chapter 17: “You have chosen gods that are no gods!” laments Jeremiah. “You have forsaken God, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for yourselves—cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” In other words: you’re out of spiritual gas, empty of God’s life-giving fuel and you’re trying to find your own source of fuel but coming up dry. Boats are made to run on gasoline; not banana peels or root beer.  People are made to run on God’s life-giving spirit; not anything else. 

EXPLOSIVE FAITH.  Third, again God’s life-changing power is explosive in the way it can ignite one’s heart and awaken one’s soul.  If you’ve ever seen a person’s life drastically flipped around by a born again experience with God, then you know how explosive faith really is.  I try very hard to remind myself and the teenagers I minister to regularly that when we come together to worship and study the Scriptures, we are in the presence of the most explosive, powerful force in the universe — in fact, the Creator of the entire universe.  Again, there is nothing tame or safe about our God — but He is good.

FIRE THAT SPREADS. Fourth, this explosive faith also spreads like wildfire when others catch a glimpse of the renewed life you’re now living.  Perhaps we, like a leaky gas can, leave a trail of flammable “faith-splashes” where ever we go, and at any given moment God can provide the necessary spark to ignite even more flames of faith in other human hearts.  Ask yourself the question: If someone lit a match near you, would your faith ignite a holy explosion?  Would anything happen at all?

INSPECT FUEL SYSTEM OFTEN. Finally, we too ought to regularly inspect our spiritual fuel system to make sure we are operating to our capacity.  Are we filling our faith tanks with God’s life-giving truth and power?  Or are we settling for cheap substitutes that will leave us empty in the end?  How full is our tank?  Are we keeping it always full or running ourselves ragged, often only stopping to refill when we’ve been running on fumes?  

“Sir, give me this fuel so that I won’t run myself empty and have to keep coming here to refuel” (John 4:13 my paraphrase). 

“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Eph. 1:22-23).

Paul pushes hard here. First, who leads your church?  Whose agenda always seems to get passed?  Pastor?  Key elders? Prominent, influential families?  Paul reminds us that Jesus is the to be head over everything for the church. Everything…means everything.

What if we sought Jesus’ input on our visioning process?  What if we sought Jesus’ advice for how to go about revitalizing?  Are Jesus’ priorities shaping our annual budget and spending?  Does our discipleship process follow the example of Jesus or the latest Christian book?

Does Jesus reign over our marriage counseling sessions?  Does Jesus have the last word in our church council conflict resolution process?  Does Jesus’ teachings inform every sermon we prepare and preach?  Is Jesus head over our mission committee and outreach efforts?

Second, do we truly embrace our primary call as a church to be the body of Christ — the hands and feet, the instrument by which God gets his will accomplished on earth?  When people think of our church, do they picture a giant Jesus?  When someone drives past our building, does the face of Jesus pop into their mind? Or, is it possible that people get other more negative images in their mind?

Do we look like Jesus in the way we treat other churches?  Do we look like Jesus in our interactions with notorious sinners in our society?  Do we look like Jesus in our interactions with the poor and needy?  Do we look and act like Jesus when we confront people who are living in sin?  Do we look and act like Jesus in the way we spend our time, talents and treasures?

Wow!  How powerful a force our churches would be if we could just manage to (1) make Jesus head over all things for our church, and (2) make it our sole ambition to be a giant, corporate Jesus to those around us!

Lord, help us to do these two things! Amen.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 19 years old and had recently experienced a spiritual awakening in college, and was reading through Romans for the first time. I was hit like a ton of bricks by one particular verse: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you” (Rom. 8:11).

Are you kidding me?!  The same power unleashed on Easter morning that broke open the grave and raised Jesus from the dead — that same Spirit is indwelling me?  If we let this reality sink in, we will come to realize that we have the most powerful force in the universe somehow available to us.

This thought never seemed to escape Paul, as it comes up here again in his great prayer for the Ephesians. He prays that God will give them the ability to grasp, deep in their bones, the incomparable power and strength that was exerted when God raised Jesus from the grave!

How can we let any human obstacle or fear stand in our way of living freely and confidently?  How can we not get up every morning with a renewed sense of peace and resolve to face the troubles of the day?

What obstacles are you facing?  Unemployment?  A broken marriage?  Addiction?  Cancer?  What if we faced these challenges clinging to the fact that we have God’s death-defying power available to us?

Next, Paul reminds us that Jesus is on the throne. Regardless of appearances to the contrary, Jesus is seated ”far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”  This is good news!

The greatest tragedy is not to die but to have lived a long life with no real sense of purpose. Twenty-first century life in the West boasts of more freedoms, opportunities, modern comforts, and vocational choices than ever before.  Yet, we are also more depressed than ever before.

We go-go-go nonstop, working longer hours and involving ourselves in more activities.  Exhausted from an unsustainable pace of life, many collapse on the couch and medicate themselves with heavy doses of TV, mindless internet browsing or video games.  Many slave away at unfulfilling jobs in order to make ends meet and pay all the bills.  We then try to fill this empty longing for greater meaning, mission and purpose with cheap, momentary thrills that never satisfy.

If one were ever stop moving long enough to listen to their heart’s deeper cries, they might have to face the fact that they might be running the race of life in vain, living a life filled to the brim with what in the end is according to Paul “useless work.” Throughout his letters, Paul speaks autobiographically about his own life’s purpose and passion.  Paul’s favorite images for the special calling God has placed on him is that of an olympic athlete running a race or a boxer fighting to win the prize (cf. Phil 3:14; 1 Cor 9:24-27; 2 Tim 4:7).

In the passage below, Paul provides several key insights into his long-term outlook on life that we would all do well to imitate.  

“Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God, just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy. Yes, you should rejoice, and I will share your joy” (Phil 2:16-18).

1.  Christ is coming back. Paul was no doubt familiar with Jesus’ many parables about the Master’s return and he lived always with this expectation in mind.  Paul was looking forward to the day when Christ would return and say to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness’ (Matt 25:21). Are you ready for this encounter with the returning King?

2. Paul’s work was not useless. Caribou Coffee proclaims, “Life’s Short. Stay Awake.”  Paul’s motto was “Life’s short. Serve God’s eternal purposes.” Paul took pride in the fact that he was investing his life in accomplishing the work God had given him to do.  His great fear was that he might be “running the race in vain” or wasting his time on things that don’t matter in the end.  Are you wasting your life on things that are useless work?

3. Paul views his life as a sacrificial offering to God and rejoices in it. Paul does not fear death — so long as his life that is being poured out in death is pleasing to God.  Elsewhere he urges us to offer our bodies “as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” (Rom. 12:1). This is a truth Paul greatly rejoices in.  He lays his head on his pillow each night with a joyful grin from ear to ear because his life is pleasing to the Lord.  This is what excites him, animates him, gets his blood pumping and adrenaline racing.  He finds joy in nothing more than serving the Lord.  What brings you greatest joy?  What do you rejoice over most?

4. Paul longs to share this joy with others. When we find something we’re passionate about, something that gives us great joy and satisfaction we naturally want to share it with others.  Paul can’t help but invite others into his deep, abiding joy and peace he has found in Christ. So he says,”I want all of you to share that joy.” Are you unabashedly, unashamedly sharing your greatest joys with others?  Are you inviting others into the great love we have in Christ?

Do you get the sense that every fiber of Paul’s being is fully captivated by a deep, abiding, constant concern for the things of God? Do you get even a whiff of mixed motives, divided priorities or dual allegiances?  Paul has truly encountered the risen Christ and his deepest affections are now swept up in the orbit of the Kingdom of God.  His own prayer seems to have been answered as he speaks as one who has been “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-18).

May we also be filled with such a single-minded commitment to making our lives count for God!  As Paul would say, “Life’s short.  So pour it out like a liquid offering to God!”

Here’s a wonderful contrast between RELIGION and THE GOSPEL by Tim Keller:

RELIGION: I obey, therefore I’m accepted.

THE GOSPEL: I’m accepted, therefore I obey.

RELIGION: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity.

THE GOSPEL: Motivation is based on grateful joy.

RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God.

THE GOSPEL: I obey God to get to God, to delight and resemble him.

RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or myself, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.

THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his fatherly love within my trial.

RELIGION: When I am criticized, I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a “good person.” Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs.

THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized, I can take it. I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a “good person.” My identity is not built on my record or my performance, but on God’s love for me in Christ.

RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of my environment.

THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with God.

RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles: If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure, inadequate, and not confident. I feel like a failure.

THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of myself as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time, neither swaggering nor sniveling.

RELIGION: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to “the other.”

THE GOSPEL: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for his enemies and who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace, so I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. It is only by grace that I am what I am. I have no inner need to win arguments.

RELIGION: Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, regardless of what I say I believe about God.

THE GOSPEL: I have many good things in my life: family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things is an ultimate end for me. None of them is something I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency such things can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.