January 17, 2011

My life verse is Psalm 131:1, “Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.” It is with much wonder and reverence that I have accepted the Bishop’s request to become the Interim Rector of Church of the Redeemer. Aware of my lack of formal education, I look to the Lord and those mature and wise men He has placed over me and with me to keep me from veering off into the ditches. After our first month together I am greatly encouraged and very optimistic that we will see God accomplish what He desires to do in us and through us. Already I have seen Him at work in our midst and give Him praise for His faithfulness to us.

The following bits and pieces of thought were primarily taken from sermons delivered this month.

The Simple Gospel. My desire is to always present the simple but amazing story: of Christ’s love for us and the sacrifice He became on our behalf that we might know and experience eternal life; as the centerpiece of the ministry of this parish. We are a broken and sinful people and stand daily in need of God’s grace and mercy. And even though we are unworthy, God has chosen us to become part of His story, the grand tapestry that He is weaving throughout all time as He redeems His people and brings glory to His name.

From Chapter One of John Eldredge’s book, “Waking the Dead”: Arm Yourselves

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” -Jesus of Nazareth (John 10:10)

“We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.” -Leif Enger, (from “Peace Like a River” )

Quote from Bishop Chuck Jones: “Are you in it to win it? We must all get up every day and live out our faith and our love for Jesus in a winner take all cosmic conflict.”

Be encouraged. We are not in this struggle alone. “O you who were, and are, and are to come, I thank you that this Christian way in which I walk is no untried or uncharted road, but a road beaten hard by the footsteps of saints, apostles, prophets and martyrs. I thank you for the sign-posts and danger-signals with which it is marked at every turn and which may be known to me through the study of the Bible, and of all history, and of the testimony of all the saints.” -  adapted from “A Diary of Private Prayer”, by John Baillie

Cynicism and defeated weariness have this in common: They both question the active goodness of God on our behalf. We must not determine our expectations of the future based upon our past experiences. Our hope is in Christ and His faithfulness and goodness. It is never too late.

In the parable of the two lost sons, Jesus uses the younger and elder brothers to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery. Each acts as a lens coloring how you see all of life, or as a paradigm shaping your understanding of everything.

Each is a way of finding personal significance and worth, of addressing the ills of the world, and of determining right from wrong. Each of the two lifepaths are equally lost.

We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground. Each moment of our existence, we are either growing into more or retreating into less. The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God’s loving presence and power in our midst are even more real. – from “The Prodigal God” by Timothy Keller.

“Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden . . . And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the LORD.”  Jer 31:12,14

“God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.” – John Piper “Not what we dutifully will but what we passionately want reveals our excellence or evil.”

“Believers are inspired to worship God even in the absence of the voice of God because of the presence of the face of God.” – Robert Smith – Beeson Divinity School

“. . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

We must be seeking to be people who stand steadfastly for truth while being filled with grace. Those truth folk tend to post warning signs and guardrails along the treacherous mountain road, but often fail to reach out to those who have made wrecks of their life. Those grace folk tend to provide ambulances and EMT’s to rescue those who have slipped off the narrow path, but fail to provide the guardrails of truth that can keep them from self-destructing again. – adapted from “Grace and Truth” by Randy Alcorn

We want our lives to be consistent with the truths that we see laid out in scripture. The menial choices we make each day as well as those life changing choices need to conform to the values and truths of our theology.

We can grow in our faith through learning to practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, study of scripture, fasting, simplicity, solitude, confession, and worship. We can use some of these spiritual disciplines to help shape or form our spiritual life as we seek to become a disciple of Jesus and we experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our life.

We can live out our faith in community with other believers. We can be intentional about establishing healthy relationships where we can serve one another and those in need. The world will be drawn to us and to our faith when they see and feel our love for one another and for themselves as well.

What I found there was an extended family, a family of people that received me as one of their own and drew me into their fellowship immediately. I asked someone, “Why has this church grown so much in such a short period of time? How do you account for this phenomenon?” “Well,” the person said, “I think it’s all very simple. We all love each other so much that we simply talk about how wonderful it is to be a part of this extended family.” This person didn’t have to explain further because I felt it. In the short time I was there I felt so revitalized in my own faith I wanted to stay.  “The Majestic Tapestry”, Robert Webber

Thank you for your support, your love, and your prayers. – Fr. Ronnie

Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.~1Corinthians 1:7

We are entering a period of time in the church calendar known as Ordinary Time.  During ordinary time we focus on the Kingdom of God and our role in it. Today’s readings reflect our baptism and ministry in the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospels we read that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit, filled with joy through the Holy Spirit, and returned in Power filled by the Holy Spirit- there are many more examples.  John tells us that Jesus Baptizes in the Holy Spirit and Paul informs us in 1Corinthians that we have every spiritual gift.  What does this mean? What is “ordinary”?

The life and ministry of Jesus during his time on earth was all through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.  This is the same Spirit that indwells the believer.  This is the same Spirit that Genesis tells us hovered over the face of the earth during creation.  The Spirit present and active during creation empowers Jesus to demonstrate the authority of the Kingdom of God over the effects of sin on creation.  The same Spirit dwells in us giving us the same ability to reveal the Kingdom to the world.  Jesus’ life, his ability to heal, deliver from evil spirits, raise the dead, teach, lead people into God’s kingdom, and have insight into men’s heart is meant to be a picture of the ordinary Kingdom life.  All these things should be present in the church to demonstrate the reality of the Kingdom to the whole world.  I want to encourage each of us to reflect on Jesus’ Ordinary time on earth and prayerfully seek for God to make it a reality in our church as we go through this season of the Ordinary.

Billy Wint

My dad owns a lot of neat things.  Several nice rifles, two houses, several acres of land, a boat and four wheeler- I could keep going. While I would never want to hurry the day, one day all of his stuff will be my stuff.  He’s my dad and I’m his only son.  Do you know someone who is adopted?  I don’t know how it works in real life, but I was watching Judging Amy once and she was handling an adoption. The scene was powerful and had a lot of impact on me.  During the process she asks the parents to affirm their understanding that this child they were adopting was going to become their child with all the rights and privileges a child would have.

Because of the gift of Jesus and our faith in him, we are adopted as children of God.  He becomes our Father and we are heirs with Jesus of all that He has.  We may be tempted to believe that we are somehow lacking because we are still sinful and have “only been adopted.” Consider this, when a couple adopts a child it is because they do not have a child or because they want to give a child in some special circumstance a home.   Any natural born children may make some sacrifices to welcome a new brother or sister, but they are not sacrificed.  Think about the amazing thing that God did.  He sacrificed his son, so that we could be adopted. If God was willing to sacrifice His son to adopt me, why is it that I struggle so much to have faith in his loving provision in my life?

Billy Wint

“For us and our salvation He came down from heaven… For our sake he was crucified…”  ~The Nicene Creed

Have you ever noticed an Eastern Orthodox icon depicting the birth of Jesus?  It can be a little disconcerting, instead of swaddling clothes the baby Jesus is wrapped in a way similar to an Egyptian mummy and in place of a manger he is shown lain in a casket.  Why?  Because he was born to die.  Death wasn’t a part of the original creation.  You and I and everyone else who lives, will live or ever has lived were meant to never face death.  We face death because of Adam’s sin.  Jesus was born to face death to free us from the curse of Adam’s sin.  He was born shadowed by a cross because you and I were born shadowed by death.  This night we celebrate the gift of a son, born to die so that we may be delivered from the shadow of death.  We will remember the crucifixion and His sacrifice at the table in the Eucharist, and we will, “celebrate the memorial of our redemption.”  All because we have seen a great light and been delivered from the darkness of sin’s curse.

Billy Wint

Jesus is confronted by one of the most insightful lawyers of his time.  Lawyers, because of the nature of the profession, have a tendency to get lost in the details.  This lawyer however, had waded through all 613 commands of the Torah and boiled them down to the most important two.

He then blew it by doing what I, and most people do, which Jesus implied was impossible, which is to try and justify himself.  How much time in a day do we waste trying to justify ourselves?  How much wasted mental energy goes into the incessant justification before the Lord, that we are doing all we know to do to find his will for our lives, and walk in it.  We are told to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you (y’all) to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Phil 2: 12b-13)

My problem and I believe much of the church’s, is that I confuse the “working out” with justifying myself and therein lies the problem.  I think Jesus was playing with the lawyer a little.  The lawyer knew the right answer: love God and your neighbor.  Jesus tells him to do that and live, knowing full well that without his help (his dying on the cross and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit), it was impossible.

Loving God is difficult enough when things are not going according to “our good purposes” , but how do you love your neighbor “rednecks” who blew off fireworks at 12 midnight, with any integrity.  The only way I know how to even begin to tackle this difficult “command” is to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Colossians 1:13. ” For he has rescued you from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the one he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

In light of this truth, all attempts at self justification are shattered, and we are drawn to give thanks and pray.  “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will, through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  And we pray this, that you would live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God”.

Is there any better prayer?  Pray for me as I pray for you.

Peace and Love,
Fr. Mike

Sometimes I think the church believes that Paul being a mighty man of God, never had a bad day.  Many believe he was so spiritual that he would not allow himself to peel the plastic smile off his face during the difficult times.  I don’t think that’s true.  I think there were many times he felt like packing it in.  There had to be the temptation to go back to Tarsus, make tents and wait for Jesus to come back.

In today’s reading from Galatians, he says WE (himself included) should not become weary in doing good.  If anyone had the right to be weary, it was Paul.  He suffered greatly for the Gospel.  He lost financial security, status in the religious community, and was physically beaten numerous times for his allegiance to Jesus.  Who in the west can say with Paul ” I bear in my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17)?

How could he persevere and not give up?  I believe it is because he so identified with the sufferings of Christ, that he never sweat the small stuff, and to him even physical suffering for the cross of Christ is small stuff.  He knew how much Jesus suffered so he could be set free from the bondage of religion and eternally accepted in Him, that nothing the world could throw at him could deter him for long.

Paul internalized and lived out the most powerful verse in all of Galatians.  Paul was crucified with Christ.  These were not spiritual words; he counted himself dead to the things of the world.  He himself lived no longer by the wisdom of the world.  The life he lived was Christ living in and through him.  Every moment of every day he walked by faith in Jesus.  Why?  because he constantly held before himself the fact that Jesus loved him enough to die for him.

I believe our Bishop has apprehended this wisdom from Paul when he said that he was finally free upon learning  that he could not live the Christian life for even a minute, but that he had to allow Jesus to live his life through his very body.  So like Paul, let us crucify the world to ourselves, and we to the world and not grow weary in taking our stand for the Gospel, for the Word promises we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

YTAT
Peace and Love
Fr. Mike

The Bishop had his “A” game on display at our provincial convocation last week ( I recommend listening to the Bishop’s 3 keynote addresses, as well as Bp. Lilly’s teaching at CTKSelma.org )

Bishop Chuck gave us a clarion call to possess the land by means of personal holiness.  He made the point that the Lord commanded Israel to show no mercy to all the ‘ites in Canaan and we believers give way too much mercy to all the ‘ites of the flesh, listed in but not limited to those found in Gal 5: 19-20 (i.e, anger, jealousy, envy, etc…).

We explain away these ‘ites as part of the fall, our human nature or flaws in our personality.  The question is, did Jesus really set us free, or, are we fooling ourselves?  Either God’s word is true, and we have been set free, or it is not and we can all go fishing, as well as eating, drinking and trying to be merry…

The Bishop told us something that we must all take to heart, we who are hungry for revival. The Lord told Bishop Chuck to tell us “if we want something new from the Lord, then He is requiring something new from us”.

Oh, he will love us no matter what.  He is in his essence love . . . But if we really want to see a change in our lives, in our families, in our church, the status quo must go.  In Isaiah 43: 18, it says ” For I am about to do a brand new thing; see I have already begun.  Do you not see it?”  I believe a new thing has already begun and those who are willing to give Him something new are the ones who are going to see it.

We must stop showing mercy to the ‘ites of the flesh and as the scripture tells us, to put them to death as it says here in Galatians.  We who love Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of our sinful nature to the cross and crucified them there (5:24).  We need to give up control to the Holy Spirit and experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, the fruit of the spirit-controlled life.

YTAT
Peace and Love,
Fr. Mike

How much have you been forgiven?  Jesus makes the unbelievable correlation between how much forgiveness we have received and our ability to love.  He tells the uptight religious types of his day, who outwardly looked fairly good, that since they didn’t recognize and bring to light the “tombs of death” within them, their forgiveness quotient was way negative and therefore they were really lousy lovers.

How do you respond to people who are obvious sinners when they are around you?  The problem with many Christians today is they keep a safe distance from “those” kind of people.  The people that Jesus said we were called to be salt and light to.

The other day, a fellow census worker and myself were in a “bad” part of town, talking to a young girl who admitted to being a pole dancer.  A couple of other folks were sitting drinking one too many beers late on a Saturday afternoon.  We talked and joked and looked for ways to bring Jesus lovingly into the conversation.  As we left, the young guy who I was with, who was a deeply committed Christian and who knew I was a pastor, said “you know, most people I know wouldn’t even want to talk with people like that and you were natural and seemed to enjoy talking to them”.

That’s a sad commentary on what passes for normative Christianity.  every Christian should be ecstatic to meet up with the Mary Magdalene’s and tax collectors of our day, with maybe a chance to bring the light of Jesus ‘ love into their dark places.

I believe Christians don’t love much because they don’t realize they really need to be forgiven much. they are not that bad and believe Jesus died for their sins “in general” , but not because their specific sins are all that bad.  We should be willing to do a fearless moral inventory on ourselves.  If we are courageous enough to see how much we need forgiveness, we will be on the verge of becoming better lovers.

We will be more like Jesus and the life we live will be by faith and the son of God who loved us enough to give his life for us so we could give our lives away to the least, the lost and the lonely.

YTAT
Peace and Love,
Fr. Mike

I saw on the news that morality is more than situational; it has totally been redefined according to recent polling.  52% believe homosexuality is moral.  Only 50% of the country believe abortion is immoral, while a whopping 92% believe adultery is wrong.  That last statistic surprised me since, if you believe polls, more than 50% of men and an increasing number of women, have fallen to that particular immoral behavior.

Another poll said that 60% of Americans admit to being “born again”.  If that is true (and I believe it to be too high), then a lot of Christians believe immorality is moral in certain circumstances.  Moral relativity is alive and well in the body of Christ.

When non believers are immoral, it is not surprising.  The bible in Romans tells us before we receive Christ, we are slaves to sin.  The thing that amazes me is when an unbeliever does something selfless, although in most instances, that comes from a self-centered need to feel good about him or herself.  I once had an atheist friend who worked with handicapped kids. I challenged him that his working for the kids was for his own feeling of self worth and the gratification he received for doing such a noble thing.  Instead of arguing with me, he said “Of course I do it for me; it makes me feel good”.

Peterson points out clearly in his paraphrase of John 16 that the Holy Spirit’s main purpose for coming was to expose the root of the world’s view of sin.  Abortion, adultery and homosexuality are wrong, but they all come from a basic misunderstanding of who Jesus is and why He came.

If the world truly met Jesus and had their hearts changed by His spirit, all the subsequent sins that we highlight as major would fall to the background.  Their major sin or as Peterson states: “basic” sin is their refusal to see Jesus as He is: the savior of the world.  And the other “sins” would be forgiven if they would accept his death as payment for their sins; then the only judgment would be seeing satan get his justice at the end of the age.

Scripture is clear:  Jesus wants all to be saved and only their refusal to believe stands in their way.  Thank God He sent His spirit to give me the ability to see Jesus for who He is.  We, like Isaiah, can only bow down, see our sinfulness, and thank God He paid the ultimate price for our sin.  Pray that the scales will come off the eyes of the lost and that they will, with the help of the same Spirit, see him as He is.

YTAT
Peace and Love,
Fr. Mike

I’ve been praying for over 15 years that the church of Jesus Christ would “live” into the incredible promise that Jesus made here in John 14.  If there is a crisis in the church today, it is a crisis of belief!  Did Jesus mean what he said or was he just speaking in hyperbole?

Many have tried to explain away this great promise by saying that what Jesus really meant is that more people would get saved because the Holy Spirit would be given to all Christians and they would exponentially increase the number of new believers by leading them to salvation.  That sounds great, and I’m sure Jesus loves the idea of multitudes being saved, but that’s not what he says in this text.  He tells Philip to believe that he and the Father are one BECAUSE of the miracles he has seen Him (Jesus) do.

In the next verse, He tells us that anyone who believes will do the same, even GREATER miracles because He is going to the Father.  Today is Pentacost Sunday, the day we celebrate that great BECAUSE.  BECAUSE Jesus went to the Father, He could send the promised Holy Spirit who would enable all of His followers to do the great, even greater works to establish and build up the kingdom of God.  BECAUSE He gave us His power, we have no room for pride.  Notice in verse 14, He lets us know that even though we are used in the process of the greater works, it is He who is doing it. Ask anything in my name, and I will do it.  He continues by saying that the greater works (that we do) are in reality the work of the Son which brings glory to the Father. (Great holy mystery)

I don’t know about you , but I’m tired of making excuses for the church; why it isn’t the representation of Jesus that Jesus himself intended it to be.  I’m praying that we will get back to simply believing that Jesus meant what He said and acting on that belief.

The church today walks too much by sight.  We see all that is wrong in our culture, we see the lack of provision and we say “Oh well, I guess we were not meant to do what we thought we were called to do!”  Jesus said we would do greater works than He.  Did he mean it?

From Abraham’s time until today, we’ve been told “the righteous shall live by faith”.  We really have to walk by faith and not by sight.  It’s not enough to believe in theory that Jesus’ words are true.  He is the truth and He told us the truth.  It’s up to us to believe and receive.

YTAT

Peace and Love,

Fr. Mike